Spying Eyes

Practice Safe Shopping

It's relatively easy to avoid that bad dream, though. Make sure the Internet merchant you buy from uses a "secure server," a computer that encrypts your data with a complicated formula that hackers can't decode.

When a company has a secure server, it's indicated on the Web site with a note saying something like "Order by credit card using a secure server." When you click on the Order button or whatever takes you to where you'll be inputting sensitive data, a message should pop up saying you are shifting to an encrypted area. And, if you're using Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, you'll see a split key or open lock at the bottom of an unsecure page, and a solid key or lock when a page is secure.

As an added precaution, send an e-mail asking merchants how they maintain consumer credit information, advises Beth Givens, a director at Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer-advocacy group in San Diego. If it is kept in the computer hooked up to the Internet (as opposed to in an offline machine) and not behind a firewall (which limits access) and encrypted in storage, cybercriminals may be able to slip into the merchant's computer and steal information from the source. "It takes real discipline to protect data, and many companies don't have the resources to do this," says Givens.