As Holiday Season Approaches, Online Shoppers' Privacy At Risk, According to WhenU.com

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2000 11:08:00 AM EST

NEW YORK, Nov 28, 2000 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Wondering why your e-mailbox is a little more stuffed with spam this season? Or why the telephone rings a little more often from pesky telemarketers? It may be the result of your online shopping.

The personal data of online shoppers has never been more valuable to online retailers -- and many use it for their own marketing purposes -- or share it with other parties, often without your explicit permission. This is according to WhenU.com, the providers of WhenUShop, a free software tool for consumers that takes the headaches out of online shopping by making it easier to take advantage of special deals, avoid late deliveries, know critical site data up-front and basically shop online more quickly, effectively and risk-free.

According to proprietary data from WhenU.com, the personal data of online shoppers is increasingly "up for grabs":

• 89% of online retailers may use your personal data to solicit you via phone or email
• More than a third of the top 350 online retailers, including Barnesandnoble.com and Gap.com may disclose your personal information to third parties without your explicit consent
• Most online retailers reserve the right to change their privacy policy at any time without notifying you
• 81% of online retailing sites use cookies (electronic markers placed on your browser which identify you and track your usage of the retailer's site)
• Only 17% of online retailers participate in the TRUSTE program, an independent entity that monitors sites' compliance with their stated privacy policies. Even major sites like Amazon.com are not participants.

"Online shoppers are increasingly concerned not just about the security of their data, but also the privacy of their data," said Avi Naider, CEO of WhenU.com. "Most online shoppers don't have the time to locate and read through privacy policy statements when surfing the web. And even if they do, the language of these policies is often fuzzy and confusing at best. While most online shoppers don't want their personal data shared with other parties without their explicit permission, this is precisely what is happening. There's clearly a need for a tool to help online shoppers make more informed decisions before shopping at a site, and this is exactly what the WhenUShop tool does."

When a shopper visits any one of the 350 top online retail sites (from Amazon.com to Wine.com) WhenUShop automatically launches and offers a quick rating of the site's policy on a range of privacy issues, including information disclosure to third parties, potential for solicitation, use of cookies, mailing list policy and whether the site participates in the TRUSTE program. However, WhenUShop rates much more than just a site's privacy features:

WhenUShop also provides instant snapshots of a site's shipping costs, sales tax policy, available coupons and rewards, rebate programs, gift services and special holiday deals. WhenUShop is not a web site, but rather a free software tool for online consumers that loads in less than one minute at WhenU.com. This online shopping assistant standardizes and streamlines the online shopping experience, providing vital data immediately to the shopper on unexpected and "hidden costs" and other hard-to-find customer service information. WhenUShop appears next to the Web browser as a slim, unobtrustive toolbar that appears automatically when users visit online shopping sites -- and disappears when they go to non-retail sites.

For more information, go to WhenU.com, and download WhenUShop. Or contact Elizabeth Case at Sommerfield Communications, Inc. [Elizabeth@sommerfield.com or 212-255-8386] to talk to the creators of WhenU.com and WhenUShop.

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