Accounts and security

The first time a customer buys goods from a retailer online they are asked to create an account. The sign-up process typically asks for:

• emailemail: electronic mail - a message written or typed on a computer and sent electronically rather than by post address
• password
• telephone number
• delivery address
• billing address
• payment details

The details stored in the account are protected by the customer's email address (which acts as their username) and password. Storing this information means returning customers do not need to re-enter it.

Security

Goods are typically paid for using a credit or debit card. During the payment process communication between the retailers websitewebsite: a web page or group of web pages hosted on one web server and viewed in a web browser and the bank takes place over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), a technology that encrypts (scrambles) datadata: information without context, eg a list of students with numbers beside their names is data, when it's made clear that those numbers represent their placing in a 100 metre race, the data becomes information.

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