"Virtual money" hasn't been too successful in the U.S. as yet, mainly because of technological sluggishness and people's unwillingness to trust electronic transactions over the Internet (or any network). But, just as people got used to ATMs, e-cash is finding a home, mostly via "smart cards" such as American Express's Blue, Visa's new smartcard, and various bank offerings, in any people's financial structures. (One source says that the reason smart cards aren't prevalent in the U.S. is that the banks are waiting for the patents to expire, which is already beginning to happen. We're just now starting to see major ad campaigns for smart cards; look for plenty more as time goes on.) Now that Microsoft, IBM, and Netscape are becoming major players in the "e-commerce" arena with their proprietory application servers, electronic commerce may hit the mainstream before you read this. One of the biggest drawbacks to Web shopping is the abysmal way many providers run their setups. Another is that even though Visa, IBM, and MasterCard have finally worked out their approach to secure electronic protocol (SET or SSL) transactions, the sheer complexity of the specs has kept most Web vendors at bay -- but that is changing now that a consortium of e-merchants, consumer advocates, and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce have agreed to adopt a single set of standards for e-commerce (eyeball it for yourself at www.commercestandard.com/). A third is the average consumer's security concerns. As Web shopping matures, look for these caveats to be addressed.

There are a number of companies that provide "seals" guaranteeing safe, trustworthy business operations; some of the most reliable are the Better Business Bureau, TRUSTe, HonorWeb, and the American Institute of CPAs. Many of the others do virtually nothing to ensure that the businesses they "certify" practice their online business on the up-and-up. For online purchases, Sun is trumpeting the Java Card, a smartcard that uses Java to provide vendors with a uniform way to build apps for the cards. Sun, Siemens, and Visa are working to bring a card with an embedded chip to the market by the time you read this. The eCash Card, provided by Deutsche Bank and eCash Technologies, is established in Europe and eyeing US markets. e-Bay and other online vendors prefer X.com, an online payment provider that is winning lots of trust.

Want info about secure shopping online? Surf over to www.setco.org/ for some valuable reading. If nothing else, Web shoppers must make sure that all their transactions are performed over secure sites (look for "https," not "http," in the URL, and note that clever hackers can and do replace your browser's address bar with a fake one containing an https address); additionally, Netscape and MSIE browsers support Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption, which is represented by an https in the URL and a closed padlock icon in the bottom left corner of the browser window. Always use plastic to ensure proof of payment and to protect yourself from vendor fraud. Make sure your vendor protects your data behind a firewall; if the site doesn't tell you, call or e-mail the vendor and ask. Be cautious; never give out more information than absolutely necessary, and never, ever give out information like bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, etc.

Learn some ins and outs of e-commerce at eBoz (www.eboz.com/index.shtml). Interested in doing some online selling? Try surfing over to www.stuff.com/, a site that allows online vendors to open up a "Net store" for free on their site. Consumers might do well to check out Stuff's comparison shopping as well. Several sites that provide free Web storefronts, and do it well, are www.bigstep.com/, www.storesense.com/, www.econgo.com/ and www.freemerchant.com/. Yahoo! gives online merchants access to their shopping community at store.yahoo.com/, at a cost of $100 - $300 with no setup fee. GeoCities provides a similar offering for $25 a month at www.geocities.com/join/geoshops/, with several other costs for setup and secure transactions. Other free business sites are available at www.hypermart.com/, www.click2site.com/, and the non-HTML C|Net site, www.bcity.com/. Netscape is providing bunches of free Web-based services on its Netcenter site at www.netcenter.com/, including e-mail accounts, visitor counters, registration of your site with search engines, site tune-up, and e-commerce assistance. Free-Services (www.free-services.com/) provides similar free services, including counters, click trackers, meta-tag generators, and a page template tool. Don't trust Web auctioneers or vendors? Check out Tradenable, formerly i-Escrow, at www.tradenable.com/ for an extra layer of security.