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YOUR SECURITY IS OUR FIRST CONCERN |
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At finethings4u.com your privacy and security are two of our highest priorities. When we refer to security, we mean the ways we make sure the information you send us remains secure. We also have a Privacy Policy.
If you don't find your concern addressed here, feel free to contact us by e-mail .
To ensure your peace of mind, and let you know exactly how we do business, here's a guide to our privacy policy:
Is my
credit card number secure?
What does
the "warning" window that sometimes comes up
really mean?
Why do I
hear so much about security on the Internet?
What's
the worst thing that could happen?
How do I
know if a Web site is secure?
Which
parts of the finethings4u.com site are secure?
IS MY CREDIT CARD NUMBER SECURE?
We have taken many steps to ensure the security of your transaction. Some of them involve adopting industry standards. (For example, the secure connection between your browser and sensitive portions of our site uses industry standard encryption.) Some of them are exclusive to us. (For example, we store your financial information on a system that is not directly connected to the internet.) Our aim is simply to enable you to make transactions with confidence.
It's important to
know that since finethings4u.com came on the net , there
have been no confirmed cases of fraud reported by
customers as a result of credit card purchases made here.
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WHAT DOES THE "SECURITY WARNING" WINDOW THAT SOMETIMES POPS UP REALLY MEAN?
On some browsers, this window can be a bit intimidating.
But it simply means that you're entering the safest, most
secure area of our Web site. This should be reassuring
since this is where credit card transactions take place.
Click on the "Continue" button to move to the
next step. Going from Secure mode to insecure mode,
you'll likely receive another similar alert message, just
to make sure you know what's happening. If you don't want
to see these alerts (a personal security choice for you
to decide), then you may click to de-check the "Show
This Alert Next Time" box.
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WHY DO I HEAR SO MUCH ABOUT WEB SECURITY ON THE INTERNET?
There
are several reasons that Internet security is a
newsworthy item. First, it's relatively new, so people
wonder and talk and write about it. Secondly, the
Internet is "technology", so people find it
interesting to discuss and tend to be a little suspicious
of it. The Internet has always thrived on openness. It
has been the "Internet way" for someone to
release something-a piece of software, a networking
specification, a security protocol-and then have lots of
smart people try to find flaws in it, lending their ideas
for making it better. It has proven to be a remarkably
effective development process. But for people unfamiliar
with it, to see each new release of a browser, for
example, get pounded on and picked apart, can be rather
disconcerting.
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HOW DO I KNOW IF A WEB SITE IS SECURE?
In order to be accurate, we're going to get a bit detailed here. When buying something on the Internet, there are three things to be sure of:
- Data you send is strongly encrypted.
- The site you're doing business with is the site you think it is.
- The site you're doing business with processes your credit card and address information in a safe and responsible manner.
Points 1 and 2 are taken care of by SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), the industry standard security protocol that finethings4u.com uses to communicate with secure browsers like Internet Explorer and Netscape. When communicating with a secure server like ours, these browsers encrypt the information you send in a way that is extremely difficult for anyone else to decode. (You don't have to know whether your browser supports secure transactions- if it doesn't, you won't be able to complete the checkout process.)
Many
security experts say the most important thing is what
happens once the merchant receives your order. At
finethings4u.com, we take several steps to keep things on
our end as safe as possible. One of the most important is
that our order processing is conducted on machines that
aren't connected to the Internet, so there's no danger of
people gaining access to them.
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WHICH PARTS OF THE finethings4u.com SITE ARE SECURE?
Most of the activity on our site involves the viewing of materials we've prepared and made accessible to everyone, so there's no need for these pages to be "secure". With a product page or an editorial page for example, no security risk exists because there is no "information" being exchanged. Anyone can access the same pages by pointing their browser to http://www.finethings4u.com .
The portion of the finethings4u.com site we've made secure is, not surprisingly, the checkout area. This is where you actually purchase the items you've put into your cart. The entire checkout process, from introduction to final confirmation, takes place in a secure environment.
There are several ways to confirm that you're in a secure area. All SSL capable browsers have a symbol to indicate secure mode. Typically you will see either a broken or complete key, an open or closed lock or simply a closed lock depending on your particular browser. The complete key and closed lock symbols indicate that you are in a secure area of the web site.
One
additional note: some browsers give you a warning when
you go from a secure area to a regular area. Their
intentions are admirable- to ensure that you know when
they've left a secure server. But to you, the message may
be a bit startling, and makes it look like you've done
something wrong even though you really haven't.
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