While the golden rule ``buyer beware'' is also true in ecommerce, there are a number of simple things that can be done by the econsumer surfing the Web. Many of these unfortunately cost additional funds to get software and other services offered by yet other ecommerce businesses!
Anonymity is a key component of maintaining privacy. If one's identity is not revealed, then effectively one remains anonymous and hence preserves one's privacy. In this section we outline two additional measures that a consumer can take to protect her privacy from the snooping eyes of the Internet. These are the methods used for anonymous surfing and ecash. Even though there is a cost involved it doesn't offer the protection the econsumer has under current legislature in many jurisdictions.
A number of web sites have been set up to offer free anonymous Web surfing; while this is an advantage, the degree of protection varies and whether this can be used by criminal elements to avoid law enforcement is an open question. Example of free though slow services are CyberArmy and Anonymizer. Freedom from Zero Knowledge[24] is a new, for a modest fee, entry in this field which claims to offer the ultimate in anonymity through their (pseudo)nyms and multiple traversals through a ``cloud of ether''.
Anonymity is sufficient for browsing but if an econsumer is to purchase anything, she has to provide identity-linked credit information. Here is where electronic money comes in. Just as cash is anonymous, ecash is also anonymous and has the potential not to be traced to a particular individual. There are various types of ecash using mainly cryptography to authenticate transactions and provide integrity, confidentiality and security. There are risks in ecash such as interception of electronic messages sent over computer networks, network errors and failures with loss of transaction records. Consumers could also suffer financial loss in the case of insolvency of the issuer of the ecash. There is also the possibility that information generated through the use of ecash may be disclosed without the consent of the consumer.
Most countries are relying on existing laws and regulations to address the problems of fraud, insolvency, and privacy concerns connected with use of ecash rather than enacting comprehensive new measures.
With the emerging technology it is possible to provide proper authentication for anonymous network and other transactions to be conducted. Biometric blind signature is one such technology, wherein biometric measure is used only to encrypt the authentication information; the actual biometrics information is never stored. This is basically an extension of techniques currently used to store users encrypted passwords rather than the plain-text passwords.