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As the online shopping season begins (Black Friday is November 28), online stores will be offering great prices for popular items. You will be enticed by the deals and limited-time offers, but don't let the excitement of shopping cloud your judgment.

Online security protection

Before you start, make sure you have up-to-date security protection including antivirus software, anti-spyware and WOT browser protection. If your antivirus is expired, try a free trial of Antivirus Pro from our partner Panda Security.

Ensure the e-commerce site is safe

Before doing business with any site, check out the reputation rating given by WOT users. Green ratings mean the WOT community knows and trusts the site. If the rating is yellow or red, consider taking you business, and your credit card number, somewhere else. Look at things like the return policy, shipping information, privacy policy and terms and conditions. If the site displays trust seals, click on them to ensure their validity.

Beware of imposters

Cybercriminals will put up replica type sites that mimic the real site or send phishing emails pretending to be a legitimate company requesting personal financial information. Once again, check the WOT rating, and make sure you can find proper contact information like address and phone number. If you have any doubts at all, no matter how good the deal is, stay away from them entirely.

Add your ratings and comments

Give back to the WOT community by adding your own ratings and comments to sites you have experience with. That way, people who visit that site in the future will know if it is safe and reliable to do business with. Thanks!

Super clever WOT fan PH from France has used the WOT API to create something many people have been asking for - WOT for Opera! And we must say, that It Rocks! PH utilizes User JavaScript to display WOT ratings in 24 different search engines. Supported languages so far are English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Turkish. PH says on his blog that he can try to add new translations or search engines by request.

Learn more and download PH's WOT for Opera from his blog.

Directions to install user scripts in Opera

WOT icons are placed to the left of the results in Opera. Hover your mouse over the icon to view more rating details.

Thank you PH! We look forward to other innovative uses of WOT. Check out the WOT wiki for information about how you can use the WOT API.

Online shopping is the way to go if you want to ship a gift directly to a recipient or shop at odd hours. This is a great time of year to do it and ratings from the WOT community can guide you when looking for a trustworthy vendor.

Thanksgiving, the American national holiday, falls late in November this year, so consumers started shopping online a few weeks prior to the official start of the shopping season called Black Friday.

What is Black Friday?

Traditionally, the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year, and the day that retailers went from being “in the red” (in debt) to being “in the black” (making a profit). Today, Black Friday is known to consumers worldwide as the ceremonial kickoff to the holiday shopping season.

Bargains everywhere

Many sites are offering retailer promotional codes and coupon offers for Black Friday and CyberMonday. Here are some promo code sites that have a high reputation with WOT users. (Do you know more? Tell us in the comments.)

Ben's Bargains

Black Friday Info

Steep and Cheap

RetailMeNot

After shopping, add your ratings to WOT

WOT reputation ratings help you stay safe when you are shopping online, so especially after you receive your order, please add your rating of the site in WOT. This is important information for WOT users and site owners.

Trust seals boost confidence and sales

Online retailers, you have time to start a 1-month free trial of WOT's Commuity Trust Network. The Community Trust Network is a program specially designed for online shop owners whose sites have superior reputations. CTN tools like Trust seals help e-commerce and other sites to publicize their trustworthiness and to collect ratings and feedback in a neutral way. Start your trial now.

Web of Trust made a good showing at SIME Stockholm, and went home happy as the top Finnish company, and number Five overall, in the Rising Stars of the North. Starting with about 1,500 young, promising companies in the Nordics, the SIME jury narrowed it down to The Mighty 36.

At the gala awards on Thursday night in Stockholm, as an excited crowd held their collective breath (in between sips of champagne), the 36 nominee's logos slowly disappeared from a large digital screen. Anticipation grew as only a few companies were left. The Finnish contingent, which included other nominees HammerKit and Muxlim, kept their fingers crossed as the WOT logo held its position as the only remaining Finnish company on the board. An audible groan escaped from the audience, when the WOT logo disappeared after reaching the 5th spot.

As expected, Spotify, the peer-to-peer music streaming service, took the top honors. Congratulations to them and to everyone who was nominated. WOT feels humbled to be numbered among so many innovative, bright companies. Keep your eye on all of them!

The SIME Awards were created in 1996 to honor excellence in online communication, business practice and technology; recognize the individuals and organizations responsible; and inspire the Scandinavian Internet industry to world-class performance.

Hi guys! :)

My name’s Surfing Girl and I’m a new employee at WOT. Originally I’m Russian but I live in Finland. My main task is to attract as many Russian Internet users to WOT as possible. I believe that all together we can make the Internet safer.

Yours,

Surfing Girl :)

Всем привет и добро пожаловать! :)

Меня зовут Surfing Girl. Я из России, но живу в Финляндии. С недавнего времени я работаю в WOT и являюсь связующим звеном между WOT и русскими пользователями. Моя задача: познакомить как можно больше русскоязычных пользователей Интернета с WOT. Я буду сообщать о самых интересных новостях и заметках про WOT, собранных по всему миру. Я уверенна, что вместе мы сделаем Интернет безопаснее. Буду очень рада познакомиться с нынешними WOT пользователями и получить советы по расширению русского WOT сообщества.

Yours,

Surfing Girl :)