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Informative Articles

Affiliate Income Booster Techniques
The biggest source of my online income continues to be from participating in and promoting Affiliate programs. They provide a steady flow of checks to the mail box. Some of these checks are for just a few dollars, and some of them are for several...

Characteristics of a Super Affiliate (Part 1 of 3)
It's one of the simplest ways to earn money online. All you need to do is become an affiliate for someone else's product, service, or program. Fill out their sign-up form and you're ready to start promoting your unique referral URL. Now I ask you,...

Double Your Income With This Best Kept Business Secret
What is the one element that your business can't survive without? Here's a clue. Without effective implementation of this one element, your business is sure to fail. Is it a great business plan? Is it dynamite web copy that sells? Is it super...

Get Traffic & Sales Using Discussion Forums
Message boards, discussion forums and newsgroups can all produce very profitable results for you and your business. Most of us already participate in one or more of these and the more you participate the bigger the benefits to you and...

Use Co-Registration To Generate Quality Leads
Co-registration, once a little-known Web marketing tool, continues to quickly garner widespread usage. First used by just a few of the largest online marketers, co-registration has gone mainstream as marketers discover that it is a simple...

 
Security Issues Everyone Should Know About Online Shopping

While there is no foolproof way to ensure that no one will EVER access information you don't want them to, there are several very effective steps that you can take to minimize the risk.

When passing sensitive data like credit card numbers, addreses, or social security numbers over the Internet, be sure that the connection you are using or implementing is encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). SSL is a commonly-used protocol for managing the security of message transmissions over the Internet. Essentially, SSL works by using a public key, or password, to encrypt data that's transferred over the connection. The receiving software, usually a browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, decrypts the message into meaningful information for the intended recipient. The encryption of the data prevents unauthorized access while the data is being transmitted over the network. (By convention, URL's that require a SSL connection start with https instead of http.)

Another step that can be taken to minimize the risk involved with transmitting information across the Internet is to use several different e-mail


accounts, each with a specific purpose. To limit your exposure to unwanted spam and potentially dangerous viruses, the e-mail address provided by your ISP or Web host should only be given to trusted parties, such as family members, friends, co-workers, and business associates. If you frequently fill out online forms that require the use of an e-mail address, use a "throw-away" address, such as one that can be obtained from Yahoo! or Hotmail. This will help stop your primary e-mail account from being flooded with unwanted mail, and it might reduce your exposure to viruses as well.

Several other key preventative measures to safeguard your personal information include checking your credit reports regularly, paying by credit card for online transactions (instead of ACH bank account debits), and searching for your name at a good search engine, like Google, to find out what information about you is online.

About the Author

Alan is the lead developer for InfoServe Media, LLC (http://www.infoservemedia.com/), a Web development company that specializes in Web site design, hosting, domain name registration, and promotion for small businesses.