Go Ahead and Shop Online, U.K. Government Says

The British government would like everyone to start shopping online and feel comfortable that it's as safe as shopping offline. That's the message of a U.K. media campaign kicking off this week.

The pitch comes as a result of a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) survey indicating that 47 percent of respondents were concerned about the security of their Internet transactions.

The DTI's pre-Christmas media blitz forms part of the government's ongoing "Clicking with Confidence" campaign, which started last year when worries about e-commerce security surfaced in Great Britain.

The DTI survey showed that there are now clear regional differences between Net shoppers. In London, for example, 35 percent of those surveyed said they had some experience e-shopping, while only 17 percent of Welsh respondents said they had shopped online.

On average, 26 percent of respondents across the U.K. said they had at some point shopped online.

Thirty-two percent said they were concerned about revealing personal information on Web sites.

The research also found that, while almost half of respondents knew there are certain risks associated with e-shopping, but only 3 percent said they had ever experienced credit card fraud on the Net. That compares to 5 percent who said they have experienced offline credit card fraud.

The DTI research was completed by MORI between Sept. 20 and Sept. 25, polling 2,013 people aged 15 or over.

www.dti.gov.uk

Reported by Steve Gold, Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .