Paul Schurr, Ph.D.,
is a faculty member
of the University at
Albany’s School of
Business. He teaches
Internet marketing
to undergraduates,
M.B.A. students
and managers.
(Contact him at: p.schurr@albany.edu.)

Yahoo.com! Amazon.com! eBay.com! The flashy brand names of today’s dot-com companies sound exciting, hip, and very “now.” Will they replace traditional storefronts? Could you lose control of private information—even your credit card—by shopping at a dot-com store? Now that an important University-sponsored Internet conference has concluded, this is a good time to re-examine the promises and the pitfalls of dot-com shopping on the World Wide Web.

First, consider the promise of easier shopping. Maybe I’m typical of many on-line consumers. My first purchases were ages ago in web years—perhaps two years. Books came first. Soon after came plane tickets and a Dell computer. Then I bought stocks and mutual funds. In this past year I bought a wonderful digital camera using a shopping-bot, an on-line computerized advisor that matched my preferences to a specific camera brand and on-line store. More recently I bought tires mounted on wheels. (Never mind about the 16 wheel covers I accidentally bought along with the wheels. They were easily returned for credit.) Like millions of other dot-com shoppers, I think on-line shopping sometimes trounces the off-line equivalent.

There’s more: See how stylish clothes look on a computerized body shape that resembles yours. Take steps toward finding and financing a condo or a car. Beat local mortgage rates and order groceries all in the same session. Saved a few bucks? Gamble with your money at an on-line casino. Yes, there are new opportunities on line, but all is not well in the land of bits and bytes.

There are pitfalls to dot-com shopping. Did you buy toys for Christmas presents? Many people received late deliveries. Have you found ordering L.L. Bean goods by telephone faster than the World Wide Wait? Were you unable to monitor your eBay auction? Denial-of-service raiders have shut down popular web sites for hours at a time. So you thought snowstorms and traffic were the only barriers on the way to shopping?

Worse yet, some web security analysts say that they don’t use their credit cards on line! Don’t worry about transactions on secure web pages that display the little lock icon. The real danger is what happens to your card number after the dot-com gets it. Lately, hackers have taken to robbing second-tier on-line stores of their credit-card transaction logs and posting them on the web for all to see. Is there a danger? I think so. Evidently, to make sites consumer friendly and to go live faster, some web designers have taken shortcuts on security.

Unsettling in a different way is the erosion of your privacy. Remember those helpful hints, courtesy of Amazon.com, suggesting other books you might like based on what you already purchased? Also, have you ever noticed context-sensitive banner ads popping up when you visit certain web sites? Behind the scenes, marketers are collecting information on you and determining the best way to target your interests and wallet. That’s why many web sites ask you to give personal information as the price for site membership privileges.

Responsible use of preference information helps make your web experience more convenient. Unfortunately, there are few limits on what or how much information is collected. For example, take companies like AOL-Time Warner or Microsoft. These companies have many web sites and could pool information about you from each site where you register or visit. Their files on you could be enlarged by purchased demographic and credit information. Other companies are trying to form alliances to pool gathered information. Unfettered, the World Wide Watch is a threat to our privacy.

Will the Internet’s future be good for consumers? I think we will benefit from new Internet brands joining trusted street brands, and our options will grow. We will still enjoy flipping through magazines on a rack and other hands-on shopping activity, of course, but maybe less often. One leading pitfall is that our privacy will erode. Although most web security holes will get plugged, I don’t think the likes of Bill Gates/Microsoft will self-impose reasonable limits to commerce-driven privacy invasions anytime soon.