1984: Web 2.0 Style vs. the shopaholic

My mom does a lot of online shopping and at some point over the last year she created a profile on google checkout. a month ago, she went to make a purchase at one of her favorite stores that uses google checkout and found that both her credit and debit cards she has used online had been automatically saved to her profile. She also uses my google and if you sign in, all your google checkout information is accessible. This would not be a problem if it automatically logged out when you close the browser but it doesn't. We also found out that this information is accessible to anyone that uses the computer if you forget to logout of mygoogle by accident. She has periodically used my computer to shop so I unknowingly have her credit card numbers. i went to amazon.com and ordered a book for class and when I went to checkout, her numbers were there on display. This is scary to know that all of this information can be so easily accessed. I do not really know how this service works but my parents freaked out. Anyone could have gotten a hold of this information. I do not trust online shopping and never do it unless forced. Can you imagine the damage that could have been done if this had fallen into the wrong hands? This definitely makes me think it's worth the gas money to just drive to the mall.

I agree with Keen about the dangers of using the Internet. I never put anything online that I do not to be publicly known about myself.