Publication: Times Of India Bangalore; Date:2008 May 21; Section:Times Business; Page Number 21
A green signal to shop or bank online
Shivani Mody & Debojyoti Ghosh | TNN
Bangalore: In the brick and mortar world, shoppers can easily look for clues regarding the trustworthiness of a store or restaurant. But in the online world, it is much harder to know for sure whether a site is trustworthy.
A trust mark posted on the site will help users ensure safety of their personal information and credit card details while carrying out transactions online. Nowadays rather than focusing on consumer awareness, organizations are looking to take up the onus to ensure safety for consumers, by adopting easy visual validation solutions on sites.
One such technique is when a user accesses a website, the address bar in the browser will turn green, signalling that customers have reached a legitimate site. And if the website is a phishing site, the bar will become red in colour. The browsers will also display other visual cues, such as a lock icon next to the address and a new field validating the site, by giving the name of the organization owing the site as well as the certifying authority.
Across the US and Europe, financial institutions such as the Bank of America, HSBC, Charles Schwab and Bank of Ceylon are already using these trusted certificates. Such solutions will be made available in India within a month for an average cost of Rs 1 lakh.
“We are talking to large banks and Central and state governments on the adoption of this concept, an extended validation (EV) SSL (secure sockets layer, a commonly used protocol for managing the security of something in transmission on the internet) certificates. In some cases we are already in the process of applying to tenders issued by some nationalised banks for enhanced online security solutions,’’ says Shekhar Kirani, vice-president, VeriSign India.
Another company, Comodo, one of the major certification authority for ensuring identity assurance on the website, also provides a green bar EV SSL certificate. Customers in India can buy these solutions online, paying $359 for a one-year certificate.
Some of Comodos’ certificates come free with an EV TrustLogo, which is a triangular red logo placed in the right-hand corner at the bottom of the site. This further enhances the customer confidence in conducting transactions on that site, providing real-time identity assurance.
Any additional security layer will help increase the number of online shoppers. A market researcher that surveyed 70% of online shoppers found that at least once they had abandoned a site due to security concerns.
Also 90% of these potential shoppers said they would have completed transactions if they had seen an easily recognisable trust mark. Yes literally a green signal.
