Are you Ready to shop online?
January 11th, 2010 by Lesley CowleyLike many of my friends, I was able to do almost all of my Christmas shopping online last year. But those who shop on the web need to remain careful so that we do not get ripped off with scams or fake or non-existent goods. There was a story in the Money section of The Times the other day, talking about the risks of shopping online. The piece was also rather critical of Google and it will be interesting to see how they will respond, particularly given their ‘do no evil’ mantra.
Online shopping risks came up back in August 2009 and we wrote a blog post outlining Nominet’s processes and how consumers can protect themselves when buying goods online. Although there is loads of good advice around, people are still forgetting the basics, so it might be helpful to re-iterate the key points to consider when shopping on the web. Get Safe Online and Consumer Direct provide some of the best advice out there and we have used some of their points, in conjunction with our own, to pull together top tips that ensure consumers are READY to shop online:
Research web sites
- Look for a telephone number for the company. Ring it and check it works if you have any concerns
- Is the web site secure? Look for ‘https://’ and the padlock that should be present on the page you are using when you are giving any payment details (credit card), or personal information
- Do they have clear privacy and returns policies?
- If you’re not convinced, take a few minutes to search for the company on the Internet and check their reputation. Trust your common sense and if necessary buy elsewhere.
Educate others
- Share your knowledge with family and friends if you have spent time researching web sites, had a positive experience with buying from a site, or have spotted a dud (as well as reporting it). It is important to spread the word about how to be safe online.
Actively protect your money
- If you purchase goods online, make sure you use web sites that have a secure way of paying (known as an encryption facility) - these show a padlock at the bottom of the screen when you are filling in the payment details
- Have a dedicated credit card for shopping online. If you do fall victim to cybercrime and the value is over £100, it is easier to claim money back using a credit card than a debit card. It also makes it easier to keep track of your online purchases.
Do not assume…
- An Internet company is based in the UK just because its web address has ‘uk’ in it. Visit the Nominet WHOIS site to check where the web site is registered. If the company is based outside the UK you might have to pay import tax on any goods you purchase
- That a web site is an official reseller of well known brand name goods. Before buying goods, you should visit a brand’s main web site to check that the web site you intend purchasing from is legitimate. For example, GHD, a company that manufacturers hair straighteners, has a dedicated section on its official web site outlining fake GHD web sites. Goods should not be purchased from any of the sites on that list.
Yes, report it
- If you do fall victim to cybercrime, call your local trading standards office, report the incident and ask for their best advice on how to deal with the situation.
Remember, as always, if the offer looks to good to be true, it probably is.



We were delighted to welcome one of the ‘fathers of the internet’, Vint Cerf, to the Nominet offices in Oxford earlier today. As many will be aware, Vint was the co-designer of TCP/IP and basic infrastructure of the internet. After discussions about international developments and domain name developments in the UK, he very kindly offered to meet Nominet staff for a Q&A session. Questions posed to Vint included: IPv6 adoption, which he feels should be a matter of urgency, new top level domains - where the possibility of thousands of new suffixes raises concerns for brand holders, current internet risks - botnets, IPv4 exhaustion etc, etc, the future of the domain name system, Google’s position re search in the Chinese market and the new Google browser - which is open source. As always, Vint provided all the answers as well as some entertaining and interesting insights.