The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body responsible for governing domain name extension worldwide, at a meeting in Paris last week voted to liberalise the process of creating a new top level domain name (TLD).

The newly approved rules governing creation of new web address will start from 2009, under the new rules, companies, individual, cities or countries can have web address ending in whatever suffix they like, for example, .london could be created for London or .Wales for wales. Companies with deep pocket can have a domain extension for themselves, for example, British Telecom can create a .bt or Boss Cart for that matter could have .bosscart domain extension. Getting the approval to create your own web address surfix is expected to cost between £25,000 - £50,000.

Creating a new web address suffix is not expected to be based on ability to buy a suffix only, ICANN CEO Paul Twomey said proposed new web address suffix could still be blocked by ICANN if its deemed to be immoral such as the proposed .xxx which was rejected last year.

The announcement was welcomed in some quarters, while others such as people responsible for protecting companies copyright thinks it will be a challenging when hundreds of new web address suffix goes online from next year, it will be costly registering all possible domain extensions to prevent it from falling into the hands of cybersquatters.

This announcement could potentially benefit ecommerce website, many desirable ecommerce domain extension are either in use or hoarded by cybersquatters, creation of new TLD will free small business from having to pay a lot of money to buy quality domain name from cybersquatters, instead, you can just register one of the new extension for your ecommerce project.

A major clothing retail company recently announce that its website was hacked and customers credit card details were stolen, thought the credit card information were said to be encrypted, the company still advised its customers to contact their credit card issuers to cancel their credit cards.

Sadly, news like this do come from ecommerce websites every now and again, this kind of news damages consumer confidence in online transactions, some people are wary of buying online as they feel their credit card details and personal information may fall into the wrong hands.

Here are a few tips to help buyers and sellers conduct online transactions safely and securely.

Tips for safe online transactions

• Ensure the site you are buying from has a valid SSL certificate.
• Keep your computer free of spywares and viruses to prevent you credit card details from being stolen via malicious software.
• Ensure you credit card company has your most up to date phone number, credit card companies always call to verify transactions that are not typical of you account profile.
• Buy from reputable merchants only, if you are not sure of a website, no matter how tempting the offer, its better to play it safe, check the identity of the company before making a purchase.
• Be suspicious of email from any organisation claiming to be acting on behalf of your bank, you should even be careful of email claiming to be from you bank, always call your bank to confirm that they actually sent the email.
• Never follow a link on an email asking you to update you credit card information on a merchants site, its better to go directly to the merchant via the url you have for them.
• Some credit card companies such as Cahoot issue a temporary credit card number that is only valid for one transaction, use such card instead of you regular credit card for online transaction.