Leader: How is ecommerce still taking a kicking?

Research out today has reconfirmed what many of us knew already - that ecommerce is far safer than it is perceived to be. And yet the message appears not to be getting through.

Sure there are problems - where there is money there is crime - but statistics from PayPal (which has a very obvious reason to want to address these concerns) suggest the majority of UK adults still think the internet poses a considerable risk.

They may be among the people you hear booking cinema tickets over the phone on a busy train, reading their details out loud for anybody with a pen and paper... to take down and defraud.

But in truth the greatest risk exists at the back-end where online transactions are concerned. A credit card number has never - to our knowledge - been intercepted in flight. This is because, to use an analogy, it is like trying to shoot down the smallest, fastest moving bird through a thicket of trees.

To further the analogy, it's far easier for the criminals to wait therefore until all these birds are sat in one big coop with all the other birds and then try to find a way to take them all rather than wrestling with the complexity of taking them one by one.

As such, the database is more commonly the target than the transaction. And databases are at risk whether it is an ecommerce site or a high street shop processing the transaction.

Of course there are related issues such as spyware and phishing where customers who are predisposed to entering their credit card numbers online could face increased risk but this is a case of users needing more education, not a case of there being anything inherently insecure about the internet.

The one change we would encourage is the introduction of disclosure laws governing any breach of security. This would help consumers build a better picture of risk for both online and offline transactions (and will prevent situations such as this, earlier this year).

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But it is still far more likely a consumer will have their wallet stolen or handbag snatched than their information intercepted online. And yet many people are still quick to criticise the internet.

Perhaps these are the same people who happily hand over their card in a bar or restaurant - often for the full time they are in there. Likewise they may be among the people you hear booking cinema tickets over the phone on a busy train, reading their details out loud for anybody with a pen and paper (nothing more high tech) to take down and defraud.

Spending money will never be risk free while there are criminals around. But it is often our behaviour which is our own worst enemy and technology, if anything, actually takes far more potential end-user error out of the equation.