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<i>Caveat Amicus</i>

By Stanley P. Jaskiewicz
September 28, 2006

Identity theft has emerged recently as one of the greatest customer risks in e-commerce. Certainly, no one will shop or do business at a site if he or she feels personal and financial information isn't secure on that site.

But the truth of it is that from the dawn of the e-commerce era, the identity of the 'other' person in a deal has always been an unknown risk. The identity of the person requesting a customer's personal information, whether the sender of a marketing e-mail or the owner of an e-commerce Web site, may never really be clear, even to those who read the fine-print terms and conditions in disclosures and contracts.

Although consumer advocates, government agencies and e-commerce trade groups have for years advocated caution when people shop online (see, for example, http://www.bbbonline.org/, http://www.safeshopping.org/ or www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/holiday), in practice, most of us may just stick to established sites that we trust. This caution that gives online users peace of mind lets the Amazon.com's of the world prosper, but makes it harder for newer sites to comfortably maneuver into a lane and niche of their own on the Information Superhighway, unless they pay for a certification service ' and customers may not trust that, either. In other words, people patronize the sites they trust. When it's so easy for a seller to allow its online identity to be verified, why should customers do business with someone whose identity may cause them concern?

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