2006-12-05-Online Shopping
Seminars@Hadley
Online Shopping
Presented by
George Abbott
Allan Maynard
Amy Salmon
Moderated by
Dawn Turco
December 5, 2006
Dawn Turco
Today’s discussion is on online shopping. I’m pleased to introduce today’s speakers. They are three Hadley folks and I’m thrilled to have them present to you today because all three have very rich experiences in technology.
The first presenter is George Abbott. He is our Dean of Educational Programs and Instruction. Allan Maynard is our Access Technology Specialist and Amy Salmon is one of our instructors and, again, someone with a wonderful background in technology. At this point I will kick it off and they’ll begin the seminar. Thank you everyone for attending.
Amy Salmon
Hello everyone, this is Amy Salmon and I’d like to welcome all of you to online shopping. First we’d like to start out with a little bit of background on online shopping and internet security. A lot of people wonder what identity theft is. Identity theft is when somebody goes on out there and steals your identity. That can be your social security number, a credit card number; it’s your personal information without your permission.
Now somebody can steal your identity by simply stealing your wallet or your purse. We’re obviously talking about how they would steal your identity through the computer. One of the key things in order to protect yourself from identity theft is you do not ever want to give out any personal information by email, over the phone, or through a website unless you are 100% certain that that site is secure and that your information is being protected.
How can you ensure that? There are several ways to make sure that your privacy is protected. The most important and most obvious is that the website or the email is encrypted. There are also a variety of software programs and things that you can do to protect your computer. Some of you have probably heard of many of these.
Putting a computer firewall on your internet service protects your computer from any intruders coming in. Anti-virus software helps protect your computer from viruses that might be sent through the internet or through email. Spyware removal tools will help remove any potential spyware that’s installed on your computer. Maybe you accidentally clicked a link on a website that you weren’t aware and that person was able to put spyware on your computer.
A pop-up blocker is another piece of software you can have installed, which will stop these pop-ups from coming up that may be able to introduce viruses or spyware in to your computer. Routine maintenance on your computer is another way to keep yourself safe. One of the things I always recommend is that…take a look and make sure you is managing your cookies.
It doesn’t mean you need to block all cookies. Just make sure that whatever cookies are there are cookies that you put there and that you want there. Control your browser’s privacy settings. If you consistently go to a site, put it in your trusted sites. Otherwise restrict other sites so that you can’t accidentally be linked to those sites which then may open you up to potential virus or attack.
Update your operating system and software regularly. Now I know most of us out there are a little scared of Internet Explorer 7.0 but outside of not downloading that one unless you’re ready for it makes sure that your Windows operating system is updated regularly. Windows does consistently put out updates to their operating environment in order to thwart virus authors and attackers from being able to get in to their system.
It’s impossible for them to protect themselves 100% of the time all the time, but they do try to keep us updated with current ones. I personally have my computer set to update weekly. You want to use a combination of all these tools to properly protect yourself and your computer from identity theft or attack from an outside criminal. Really it’s what they are, it’s a computer criminal.
A lot of my students ask me, “What do I do if I’m a victim of identity theft?” Ironically, I myself was a victim of identity theft about four years ago. There are a couple of steps you can take. The first thing is you want to put a fraud alert on your credit report and check your credit report regularly. You can check it through the three main credit report agencies.
Close any accounts you know have been tampered or violated or believed to be opened fraudulently. File a report with your local police. I filed a report with my local police station. Ironically, the person who was arrested lived about 20 miles away from me. You can also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. The website for them is
Outside the United States you can contact the Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse Team at, and it’s an 800 number, (877) 701-9595. The last point I’m going to make on this whole issue of identity theft and protecting yourself is just be smart. Use common sense.
You’re not going to go in to a store and leave your wallet sitting open on the counter so that somebody can come by and copy down your credit card numbers. You’re not going to leave credit card receipts open so that somebody can pick one up and use it. Be smart when you use your computer.
George Abbott
This is George. I’ll jump in here and just mention a couple of things that I use online that goes along the line of being smart. And there are two of them that are important to me.
The first one is I have a credit card that I use specifically for online purchases, so I have a card that has a lower limit than most of my other cards to help minimize any damage in case anything did happen despite the fact that I believe we’re limited to a $50.00 liability in the U.S. if you filed a report and prove that it’s fraudulent.
However, I didn’t want to take that chance so there was no need to get a very large credit card in most cases. So using a separate one, it also is easier to help track your purchases for online only.
The second thing is using a service called PayPal and the website is paypal.com and this allows you to basically sign up for free and get an account that you can use. And instead of you giving information about yourself and your credit card you’re using your PayPal account and then it’s PayPal who actually debits or credits your card, but not the merchant.
Amy Salmon
This is Amy again. Another way that you can verify that you’re dealing with a legitimate site that’s secure and able to take your transaction and keep your information private is check the address. Make sure that it says https as in secure. You can check that very easily by looking at the top of your browser because at the top of your browser it will say Internet Explorer and then the address and if you’re in a secure site it will say indicating that you are actually in an encrypted secure site.
Allan Maynard
This is Allan Maynard. Also be sure you’re going to reputable websites. For example, Sears.com or JCPenney.com because those two organizations have been around a long time and they have really good reputations and therefore their websites are going to be either secure or at least they could be easily trusted.
Amy Salmon
I had a call today from a student asking me, “How do I know if a site is secure or trusted?” Common sense. If it’s a brick and mortar store that you know physically exists like Eddie Bauer or Sears or Penney’s then their website is most likely going to be secure and you can feel pretty safe doing transactions with them. Just like you would feel safe calling their 1-(800) line and making purchases through them.
If it’s a store called you might want to be a little concerned about them and do a little more checking, and we’ll get in to that in a couple of minutes. Another point I want to make is do not send any information, confidential information, bank routing numbers, anything like that through email. Particularly users of these free email accounts, like Yahoo and hotmail.com.
If your email address is one of these free accounts they don’t have anywhere near the security settings that another email provider might offer and in some cases, because they are offering the service for free, you may find that they are actually selling your email address in order to help pay for that. So I can’t stress enough that you do not send any information, confidential or private, by email unless it’s digitally encrypted which is another option.
The last point I want to make on this whole issue is if you want to learn more about internet security, how to protect yourself, how to make sure that your computer is protected, what are some of the threats out there to you and your computer, then I would encourage anyone who has not already taken the Internet: Beyond the Basics course from Hadley to take the course because we do go in to extensive detail in Lessons One and Two on internet security.
Dawn Turco
Presenters, we have a text message question about the…I guess it’s the security of Amazon. The writer wants to know about Amazon.
Allan Maynard
This is Allan Maynard. I’ve gone to Amazon and bought…in fact, just recently bought some Christmas gifts. In my opinion, I believe that Amazon is pretty…I don’t know how super secure, as secure as any website can be. But I think it has a good reputation and I feel very comfortable buying items from Amazon.
Amy Salmon
This is Amy. I was actually on Amazon Access this morning and when I went to go through the purchase process you do get a little dialog box that comes up that warns you, “You are about to enter a secure website.” That’s another indication to you that you’re going in to an encrypted or secure site. I did an Insert-T with my JAWS screen reader and heard it announce Internet Explorer so that is one way you can verify that you are actually on a secure site that is protected.
Caller
What about speaktomecatalog.com?
Amy Salmon
This is Amy. I don’t know that website or that organization, but we are going to get in to how to check about whether a company is valid and how to do some ratings and checking on them in a few minutes.
George Abbott
I’d like to stress too…this is George, that…I’d like to stress that we may not necessarily have been to all the sites that you may ask about and there will be certainly time at the end that hopefully we or other people in the room here can chat about so stay tuned for that too.
But I also want to mention that the websites we’re mentioning here aren’t necessarily endorsements of them. They’re sites that we’ve been familiar with and so we’re talking about them and it’s not to exclude many others that do fit the examples. Amy?
Caller
Hello. Hi, this is Pam. I just want to jump in; I hope I’m not out of turn. I did come in a little late. Speaktomecatalog.com is a small concern run by a totally blind woman out in Olympia, Washington and I don’t have the telephone number right in front of me but there is a toll-free number and so I’m sure if you logged on to that site and were to call them I’m sure they can give you any information.
But I’m sure that it is a legitimate site so that shouldn’t be…whether it’s secure…I would be surprised if it weren’t, but you can always go on and check that. But the site and the company are legit.
Caller
1(800) 248-9965.
George Abbott
And Amy will be talking about how to verify if a site is secure as well.
Amy Salmon
I’m going to go ahead and keep moving forward so that we don’t run out of time. So unless there’s any further questions that Dawn wants to throw out at this time I’m going to take over and continue moving. The next section we want to talk about is accessibility. Ooh, the big bad word out there for internet.
For those of us who are blind or visually impaired accessibility can be a double-edged sword in many terms. I get a lot of students and questions about, “Well, I want to go to this website but it’s not working for me.” Unfortunately there is no guidelines or regulations regulating the internet or the creation of websites.
There is nothing I can do about it; there is nothing JAWS can do about it, Window-Eyes or anybody. We are doing the best we can to make the technology work within the framework of the way websites are being created today but if a web designer gets it in his head to go ahead and create a website and not have any accessibility issues in mind they have their right to do it.
There is some legislation pending right now that may change that but the best advice I have is look for sites that are WCAG, or what that stands for is the World-wide Web Consortium for Accessiblity Guidelines. They are the creators of the guidelines for creating an accessible website. It is an international-based organization. If a site is WCAG-approved they’re going to cite it on their site and you can look for WCAG-approved sites.
Another reference point would be Section 508, which is specific primarily to the U.S. Any federal agency or business representing the federal agency in the areas of telecommunications technology have to adhere to 508 compliance, meaning their websites have to meet these issues. You can again search for a site that’s Section 508 compliant because they would have that noted in their website.
And then the last is Bobby. Bobby is still out there and is still being used by quite a few people, if it’s a Bobby-approved site. So that’s one way that you can verify that a site might be accessible before you even get to it. But I hate to tell you you’re still going to run in to sites that are going to throw walls up and you’re not going to be able to get past them.
I’ve got some examples here that some of you might find kind of humorous, of some really, really bad websites. We like to call them “grossly inaccessible websites” and this is…everybody wants to go on this one but unfortunately it is not very accessible, is youtube.com. It is a Macromedia Flash environment and the inherent inaccessibility of Macromedia Flash makes this website not too user-friendly to those of us using access technology.
Target, if you haven’t heard about it I’m sure you will hear about it. There is a lawsuit pending against Target right now for its inaccessibility of its website. Now most users can get in to Target, they can look for a product, they can find a product. That’s all fine.
The problem with Target’s site is that in order to actually purchase a product on their website you have to click the mouse in the form field to purchase that product. It is what’s called “device-dependent” on the mouse. If you are not a mouse user you can get all the way through the purchase process but if you can’t click that mouse you cannot complete the order. That website is
This one’s kind of a funny one. It’s rent to own homes and it’s And then the one that I love the most, that’s my favorite that I like to go to just for kicks is webpagesthatsuck.com. And it is just This is a website where the creator has actually gone out and identified the worst webpage of the month, the worst website of the year, and it’s kind of humorous to take a look at some of the sites that are up there.
How can you increase your access to the internet as a blind or visually impaired user? Well, you can first try using search engines that are more accessible. Google has created what they’re calling an “accessible search engine.” What does that mean? It means that Google’s going to go out and look for sites that meet the top criteria for accessibility.
It doesn’t mean they’re going to be 100% accessible but it will meet the top criteria for keyboard or screen reader access and hopefully low-vision access as well. Their search engine address is You could also, if you don’t want to just pull websites that are accessible…if you want an easier search engine so that you’re not getting all the garbage that say Google or WebCrawler might throw up, like the cache pages…all that stuff.
Google has a text-only simplified search engine and I personally use this all the time. It strips out all the garbage, just gives you the website address and the link to that website. And that website address is As I’ve already said, you can also check for websites that are WCAG or Section 508-approved and I did a couple just before we went live today. I typed in…I’m looking for a particular Christmas present so I typed in “charm bracelets WCAG”, pulled me about nine hits of websites that were all at least Priority 1 WCAG-approved.