We're more confident shopping online, eBay survey finds

Stuart Corner
Monday, 04 September 2006 18:54

IT Industry - Strategy

A survey of 1600 Australian Internet users, conduced for eBay by Sweeney Research, found that 76 percent believe online shopping is becoming safer, but many still think the industry is not doing enough to educate consumers about online shopping safety.
In response to the survey, eBay has launched an online 'Web Smart' guide to provide users with information and advice on shopping safely online.

"The Web Smart guide is informed by the research we did on what people are concerned about and the things that are actually impacting on people, eBay Australia trust & safety director Alastair MacGibbon said. "We focus on phishing, spoofing, identity theft."

He added: "Two thirds of respondents said the most important thing for them to have trust in shopping online was protection of their identity, primarily their financial identity. However, the vast bulk of identities that are stolen are stolen offline through theft from peoples' letterboxes or swiping their card at a petrol station or somewhere."

According to MacGibbon, "The number one driver that is making people more safe is that they are using PayPal [an eBay subsidiary] to protect their identify when making purchases." He added: "the biggest problem in relation to account security is weak passwords and password security in general....The best advice I could give is have a hard to guess password and change it regularly."

However, he said that eBay does not require users to change their passwords at set intervals or require passwords to contain alphanumerics. "I think in time you will see a general shift in the way eBay deals with passwords, but to keep eBay in perspective, it is different to Internet banking...When people send out phishing for eBay passwords they are hoping that people use the same passwords for their Internet banking."

Fifty eight percent of respondents said they did not think the industry was doing enough to educate people about security online. "That does not mean the industry is not trying," MacGibbon said. "I think they are making good efforts, it's just that they are not getting traction with consumers.

In spite of consumers calling for more information, eBay's survey found that one in five online shoppers never or rarely read the security information on a website. To make a greater impact, eBay intends to introduce shorter tailored security messages that are germane to what ever activity the user is engaged in at the time, for example reminding them about changing passwords frequently when they log on.

"The release of the Web Smart guide is only the first stage of a long programme of changes to help people get web smart," MacGibbon said. "You will see us start to send messages out on a very tailored basis, and small messages relating to what people are doing at the time.

"In the guide we have a compendium of compelling simple steps that are easy to follow. Our job is now to slice and dice those and deliver them to people at various times in their life cycle as a customer...We have already done some relevant experiments and we know that it works."