The growth of electronic commerce ("e-commerce") is likely to be hindered if consumers continueto have doubts about the security of personal information that they are entrusting to electronic merchants. A 1997 Ernst & Young survey of U.S. Internet shopping, for example, found that almost 70 percent of those who had not yet made a purchase on the Internet were uncomfortable sending their credit card data over the Net. Still more recently, a surveyby the Pew Research center found that 61 percent of those who had nevermade an online purchase cited credit card security as a reason.