Quite a few high street shops reported sales were not quite what they had expected over the Xmas period, and that they believed that they had lost out to sales over the Internet. Such traders should, however, perhaps be pleased that they did not do even worse - a post-holiday survey released by the Business Software Alliance reveals that one in three US online adults shopped less or not at all over the Net during the Xmas period due to security fears.
One in five online US adults said internet security had them "very concerned" or "extremely concerned" this holiday season. Those concerns ran highest among those 55 and older (31 percent said they were "very" or "extremely" concerned).