Shopping Cart Internet Software

If any fraudulent activity takes place on a customer's credit card via your shopping cart Internet software, it is usually the seller that is liable.

You will need to ask the person who created your shopping cart Internet software the steps they have taken to ensure that customer information transmitted to and stored on your site remains private. Your shopping cart Internet software should support SSL (Secure Socket Layer) software, with 128-bit encryption. You should also install a Firewall to stop Spyware and viruses tagging themselves on to your shopping cart application and reading the private data contained in it. You'll also require a payment gateway to provide credit card encryption before data goes in transit from your site: if you have a free online merchant account provider, these will often provide payment gateways as part of their package, but double check before you sign up.

When customers come to pay for their goods, you'll also need a payment registration set up so that you can confirm that the person buying your goods is also able to use the credit card in question.

Once you have taken the necessary steps to ensure that your shopping cart Internet software is secure, you must inform your customers that this is so. If a customer is going to trust your service, they will want to know that their credit card details are safe (for some people this is their biggest barrier to buying goods over the Internet, even though telephone transactions can have as many - if not more - security risks), how their personal and financial information is going to be used, and how they can opt out of company communications (enewsletters, etc) if they wish.

Your company should also sign up to Truste (www.truste.org), and display the Truste seal on your website. To earn their web privacy seal, you must create a privacy policy that can be reviewed and approved by Truste, post notice and disclosure of collection of personal information, and give your ecommerce users choice and consent over how their information is used.

Business.gov (www.business.gov) is a useful resource, and is the official business link to the US government: it contains useful business start-up guides, plus information on the permits, licences and Employer Identification Numbers you need to operate your business legally. It also includes information on copyright, trademarks and patents.