Starting an Online Business All-in-One For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Chapter 1: Understanding Security and Your Risks

In This Chapter

• Recognizing your liability
• Establishing written guidelines
• Setting up secure ordering
• Gaining third-party approval

More than two million Internet-related crime complaints have been received by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), since its founding in 2000. The organization received nearly 304,000 complaints in 2010 alone — the second highest annual total in its history. This follows a year in which cyber-related complaints added up to more than $560 million in losses for consumers. The IC3 is a join effort with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center, established to track cybercrime.

As both a consumer and an e-commerce merchant, you are vulnerable to becoming a victim of cybercrime. In 2010, 14.4 percent of complaints involved some type of nondelivery of payment or merchandise and nearly 10 percent were related to identity theft. The ultimate burden is on you, the online business owner, to provide a safe, secure shopping environment for your customers while protecting both your customers and yourself from potential financial losses.

In this chapter, we talk about what you can do to keep your customers safe so that they continue shopping with you.