Many people shy away from sending their friends ecards or giving out their credit information online because of the real and imagined dangers of spending money on the Internet. Unfortunately, some online companies will share or sell your information to third parties or inundate your inbox or mailbox with unwanted solicitations. However, reputable companies, who care about and respect their customers, alleviate these kinds of worries through a good privacy policy.

A fully disclosing privacy policy should tell you exactly how your information is used and with whom they share your information. Privacy policies should be easy to find and understand and it is important that you read them before you share your personal information.

All privacy policies are different, but a good policy offers protection by implementing the following practices:

1. Not selling, sharing or otherwise releasing personal information to third parties
Some sites, especially free ones, sell your personal information to spammers and advertisers. The fine print of many disclosures will tell you that they will share your information with their partners, but they should offer you a way to opt-out so that you do not receive unwanted newsletters, 'special offers' or other solicitations.

2. Securing credit card transactions
Companies should secure your credit card transactions by a SSL Certificate, VeriSign or some other encryption method.

3. Striving to protect minors
Companies that offer adult or consent related material should strive to limit access by minors. It is a good idea to keep credit card information private, so that children cannot login to these types of sites.

4. Offering an opt-out or unsubscribe option
Many privacy policies will tell you that you may receive email or mail advertisements, 'special offers' or incentives by submitting your contact information, this is common. However, they should offer you an easy-to-find opt-out option.

5. Limiting access to customer databases
Many companies will offer extra reassurance by limiting access to your personal information, by only allowing a few employees rights to your personal information. Larger companies also can afford to operate their own servers; non-shared servers are more difficult to gain admittance.

6. Disclosing how unidentifiable information is used
Unidentifiable information may include your web surfing habits, like the ads you visit, the pages you look at or other anonymous data that is valuable for marketing purposes. This may also include how they use or whether they use 'cookies.' Interactive sites often require cookies to run all of their features, but you should be able to remove them when you are done.

Keep in mind that privacy policies do not cover those that may advertise on a particular site. It is also always a good idea to install anti-spyware and personal firewall software to protect your computer data and personal information.

If you feel that a company is not applying the principles outlined in their privacy policy or if you encounter customer service problems, you can file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau or BBBOnLine. The BBB primarily handles complaints relating to marketplace transactions, including advertising claims. You can also check online to see if a particular company is a member or not. Nevertheless, this organization is not all-inclusive and protecting your personal information is really up to you.

So next time you want to sign up for a free membership or buy something online, check out the companies privacy policy to see if they value their customers and offer some sort of protection of your personal information.

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