The Internet is a revolutionary new exciting tool that puts large amounts of information at the click of a mouse. Logging on the Internet is like walking through the biggest shopping mall. It allows you to buy tickets for concerts, reserve a hotel, and even purchase stocks. The Internet allows the consumer to have freedom of choice and convenience. Shopping online offers many benefits that stores cannot offer. For example, the Internet is always open [seven days a week, 24 hours a day]. The Internet offers a variety of bargains.

             The Internet is a great place to do some comparison-shopping. Instead of going from store to store, you can navigate through the World Wide Web with the comfort of being at your own home. Before you buy a certain item, you can receive product information and give yourself a price comparison from many different resellers. Another feature of shopping online is transactions with other country"s. Those countries can provide you with the best exchange rate of your currency into the exchange of your merchants currency. .

             Shopping online can be very private as long as you use a secure browser. This software allows you to navigate through the web. Your browser should have industry security standards, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or (SET) Secure Electronic Transaction. By having these security standards on your browser, it allows the transaction information being sent back and forth from the reseller to be encrypted. Most computers already come with this browser pre-installed. If this is not the case, to obtain one of the most popular brands of browsers, you can download them from the Internet at no cost. .

             The creation of Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) standard has involved the efforts of many people. All of the work done for SET has been done in an open sourced process. The work included many financial institutions and technology makers. The total standard and testing has gone through extensive tests, reviews and comments.