ITEM’s Internet Security & Privacy Policy

SAFE – Even without special security systems, it is actually safer to use your credit card over the Internet than in stores or your neighborhood restaurant. In stores and restaurants, they use a multiple copy credit card slip which you must sign.  Any employee there has access not only to your full credit card information, but also your signature.  On the Internet, transactions are performed electronically with short transmissions, and there are no multiple copy credit card slips being used, and no signatures, which already makes your purchase safer.

In order to intercept an Internet transmission carrying your credit card, someone would need a $50,000 piece of equipment called a “protocol analyzer,” and would have to have the protocol analyzer connected to precisely the very wire which would be carrying the electronic signal with your credit card number on it.  The Internet is composed of millions and millions of wires all over the world, and controlled by “network routing nodes” which spontaneously redirect the signals over different wires depending on which route is shortest at any given moment.  As a result, it would be practically impossible to intercept any credit card transmission as a whole sequence of numbers.  Furthermore, when credit card numbers are transmitted over the Internet, they do not arrive all together on any given wire.  Even the smallest transmissions are broken up into packets.  Each packet contains codes which tell the receiving computer how to put them together into a whole transmission.  But different packets often travel along different wires, or along the same wire interrupted by packets from other unrelated transmissions.  Therefore, even if a real techno-wizard had $50,000 for a protocol analyzer, and got extremely lucky, they could not obtain your credit card number unless they catalogued, traced and examined every one of the hundreds of thousands of packets which traveled along that wire that day, which would take a team of experts worthy of the CIA.

The only realistic possibility of getting credit card numbers from the Internet is breaking (hacking) into the server computer where your credit card number sits until the merchant reads it and submits it to your credit card company to charge your purchase to your account.  Even this takes advanced knowledge and special skills far beyond anybody who we regularly entrust our credit card information and signatures to on a daily basis.

In any case, under the US federal Fair Credit Billing Act, even if someone does steal your credit card number, you can not be liable for any fraudulent charges over $50.

You can already see how giving your credit card number on the Internet is much safer than giving your credit card number and signature to a teenager in a restaurant who then takes it into a back room somewhere.  The only reason so many consumers are alarmed about Internet security is because big software companies spend millions of dollars on alarmist advertising to convince people that they should be worried, so that these big companies can sell their security software and technology to Internet service providers and Internet business like ITEM.

SECURE – ITEM is committed to providing safe and secure transactions for your purchases. Your order and credit card information is stored on a special computer, separate from the computer where our web site resides, called a “secure server.”  Our secure server uses the latest encryption technology “SSL” (Secure Sockets Layer).  SSL encrypts your credit card information by saving it as unreadable computer code. Only the authorized merchant who owns that secure server space (i.e., ITEM) can read this information to complete your purchase transaction.   This technology is compatible with Netscape 2.0 or higher, Microsoft Explorer 3.0 or higher, and AOL 3.0 or higher.

In addition to standard secure server technology, ITEM provides several extra security measures.  Our servers are newly equipped with additional “firewall” technology, an advanced technology used by the FBI and other agencies to keep out hackers.  They are also equipped with “tripwires,” which immediately alert our service provider of unauthorized attempts to access our servers.   As further protection, our secure server also records the originating IP (Internet Protocol) address of all persons accessing the site.  This information can be used by security professionals or federal authorities to track down a person in the case of unauthorized access.

Therefore, you can be assured that ITEM gives you the most protection currently available for safe and secure on-line credit card purchases.

SOLID – The most important factor in Internet security is knowing who you are dealing with.  In other words, you want to know that you are purchasing from a real company which is a responsible credit card merchant and a stable business.

This website is backed by a solid corporation, the Institute of Technical Energy Medicine, Inc., doing business as Innovation Technologies and Energy Medicine (ITEM).  We are registered with the Delaware State Corporation Commission, which allows the public to verify that we are a corporation in good standing, with no violations of law, and no debts.  The number which identifies us to the State Corporation Commission, and makes us subject to other controls of legislation and regulation, is our Federal Tax ID # 51-0381872.

Furthermore, in order to maintain our privilege of charging purchases on credit cards, we are also subject to the controls, rules and regulations of CardService International, MasterCard, Visa, and American Express corporations.  This provides extra outside assurances of our fair business practices and honest treatment of consumers.

Therefore, you can be completely reassured that all your Internet purchases with ITEM are safe, secure, and solid.  So please enjoy our web site, and be confident that you can securely take advantage of all of our services and products which fulfill your needs.

1)   Any personal or contact information collected by ITEM is used exclusively for our own internal purposes of facilitating direct communication, customer support and technical support with those who have business or professional relations with ITEM upon their own initiative.

2)   Such information is kept by ITEM only in a central hard-drive (“off-line”) database under password, or on paper hard copies. ITEM uses traditional physical security measures to protect such information from unauthorized use or alteration, just as we take security measures to protect our own corporate trade secrets and technical proprietary information.

3)   It is ITEM’s strict policy to never share any personal contact information with any third parties, with the exception of email addresses for the purpose of providing referrals.  If ITEM does provide a prospective customer with your email address (which may occur only if you have ITEM’s BOSS™ or RFI™ technologies), and that customer contacts you and subsequently orders from ITEM, you are awarded a referral commission.