EarthLink, one of the nation's leading Internet service providers, is offering online safety advice for holiday shoppers. Consumers should follow safety rules while shopping online to ensure their computers, credit card numbers and personal information are safe from Internet hackers and thieves.
Below are online shopping tips to help prevent criminals and spam emailers from taking advantage of consumers this gift-giving season.
Online Shopping Tips:
* Only shop from trusted online retailers with secure Websites. All secure Web sites from reputable online retailers will have a "locked" symbol at the bottom of the Web browser.
* Don't respond to "phisher email spams." Phisher spams look like emails from online retailers, ISPs or others stating they lost your credit card number from a recent transaction or their systems erased it. These spam emails, via hyperlinks, take you to phisher Web sites that mimic real corporate Web sites and ask consumers to enter personal information that the "company" has lost. Spammers use the phony "phisher" Web site to harvest personal information and credit card numbers.
* Look for the shipping and return policies on a Web site, as well as an online retailer's physical location and phone number.
* Be wary of holiday-themed email attachments, downloads or screen savers. They may have embedded viruses or malicious code like spyware. Spyware is a rapidly proliferating type of application that secretly forwards information about a computer user's online activities. Left undetected, it may lead to increased identity theft, computer corruption and exposure to annoying pop-up ads.
EarthLink and other ISPs have tools available to their users that will allow consumers to safely enjoy online shopping and other holiday activities online in 2003.
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Produced for EarthLink
