eCommerce Hosting by Affinity Internet
eCommerce Hosting Services Secure Credit Card Transactions
for all ValueWeb Customers
By Staff Writer
eCommerce
Hosting by Affinity Internet will now offer two services
designed to meet and exceed current industry compliance standards
for online credit card usage: ScanAlert PCI Certification
and ScanAlert HACKER SAFE®. PCI Compliance is an industry
requirement for businesses of any size that accept credit
card payments online.
"At Affinity, we understand the importance of providing
our users with easily accessible and effective solutions for
their eCommerce needs," said Jim Collins, CEO, Affinity
Internet. "Our goal is to help our small business owners
navigate the ever changing scope of the Internet as efficiently
as possible -- a task that can be difficult since most small
business owners lack the resources available to their large
enterprise counterparts."
One such change is the recent regulations implemented by
credit card processing services, such as VISA CISP, which
make Certification to the PCI standard a requirement for all
Web sites accepting credit cards. Fines for noncompliance
can reach up to $500,000 per incident and lead to further
restrictions on the merchant. Under these regulations, in
the event of a security breach, credit card companies can
punish violations from small- and medium-sized businesses
in the same manner as large corporations.
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"Most small businesses simply can't afford these penalties,"
noted Collins. "Yet, despite these strict regulations,
our recent survey of ValueWeb users showed that 75 percent
of our eCommerce merchants were unaware of their compliance
status. Clearly this is a problem we are looking to solve
for our customers."
In the past, obtaining PCI Certification for online businesses
could cost thousands of dollars. Affinity Internet is now
offering it free to professional hosting users and for the
low cost of $69/month for business and commerce users. Merchants
can also subscribe to ScanAlert's premium HACKER SAFE®
service, starting at an additional $19.99/month.
"Until now, once a small business became aware of compliance
regulations, they often found they couldn't afford to meet
the industry standards," noted Michael Ayers, Director
of Channel Sales, ScanAlert. "We are thrilled to be partnering
with Affinity to offer this technology at an affordable price
for small- and medium-sized businesses."
HACKER SAFE is the world's most widely adopted eCommerce
security standard. ScanAlert only allows the certification
mark to appear on sites that pass comprehensive daily security
audits of eCommerce infrastructure. As long as a site remains
secure, ScanAlert continually serves a HACKER SAFE certification
mark directly to the retailer's Web site from ScanAlert's
network. In scientific testing by more than 400 retailers,
including PETCO, Yankee Candle and Warner Brothers, HACKER
SAFE certification increased sales conversion an average of
14%.
About Affinity Internet
Affinity Internet is committed to empowering its customers
to write their own Internet success stories. The company provides
more than 180,000 Web professionals and small businesses the
tools to develop, maintain, market and support their Web presence,
making the Internet a useful and relevant part of their businesses.
Affinity's brands include: ValueWeb, for Web design, eCommerce
hosting and online marketing solutions, and Gate.com, the
cutting-edge UNIX and Windows Web-hosting service. Affinity's
co-brand and private-label partner programs enable leading
service providers and Internet brands to extend their value
proposition to include feature-rich Web site, eCommerce and
online marketing services and applications.
This press release was posted August 15th, 2006. Its content
are copyright and the responsibility of its issuer.
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