The Internet's first anonymous shopping tools are going live this fall. These are various virtual masks that cloak people's credit-card numbers -- and, in some cases, their real names and addresses -- from the prying eyes of online merchants. At the . . .
The Internet's first anonymous shopping tools are going live this fall. These are various virtual masks that cloak people's credit-card numbers -- and, in some cases, their real names and addresses -- from the prying eyes of online merchants. At the same time, a batch of new security tools are being introduced to help credit-card companies verify that shoppers are indeed who they say they are.

It's all part of the Internet industry's attempt to counter the widespread attitude that online shopping is neither secure nor private. Merchants are embracing new privacy tools, partly with hopes of fending off heavy-handed regulation by Congress, while financial institutions are mostly concerned about fraud.

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