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Going, Going, Gone to the Criminal
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23/2/01
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Looking to bag a bargain on the Net? Well the phrase "buyer beware" has never been truer, according to the findings of new research from Emarketer who claim that the bulk of electronic crimes committed in the US last year were actually related to Net auction sites.
In its new study "The ePrivacy and Security Report," Emarketer collated research carried out in 2000 by various sources. These include the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Federal Trade Commission, and IBM, as well as analyst companies including Forrester Research and Jupiter.
Analysis within the report shows that it is the sheer scale of auction usage that has led to crime. Auction sites represent some of the most visited sites of all. Ebay, for example, attracts 16 million users per month. Given this level of hits, it is not surprising that 87% of online fraud last year was related to such auctions. Emarketer estimates that the average cost per US victim of Net fraud was in the order of $600.
Overall, Emarketer’s research indicates that a lot of work is needed in order to rectify this poor security situation. One precaution could be in educating users as to how to manage online data security, and in explaining the privacy statements put out by site operators.
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