Wikibuy is now Capital One Shopping.
Capital One Shopping is an extension that was originally made for Chrome but can now be accessed through Firefox and other browsers.
It’s a way to shop for bargains and price comparisons.
There are alerts that you get as soon as a price drops so you can act on it.
Is Capital One Shopping safe?
It is, and there are five good reasons.
Is Wikibuy Safe? (Five Reasons It Is)
Wikibuy as Capital One Shopping is safe because it’s backed by Capital One, a large, successful corporation that cannot afford a blight on its reputation.
They handle the finances of millions of people worldwide.
Read on to find out why they are safe.
1. Requires An Extension To Use
Not all extensions are created equal.
However, according to Techzine Europe, the popular ones have tons of reviews and have been around for years are considered safe.
For this company, Wikibuy is now Capital One Shopping, and they back this extension.
Capital One is a large bank and credit card company that has a lot of time behind it with a great following.
They aren’t perfect, but no company is.
The point is that they can’t afford to have an app or extension that rips people off and steals their information.
It may help people to understand that it’s not cost-effective to have something the company doesn’t really need to take this kind of risk.
In other words, buying Wikibuy is not going to make the company.
It can, however, break the company if it starts looting its users.
They saw it as an expansion into a niche market that does well, so they took it over.
These things happen with companies every day.
A corporation as large as Capital One isn’t going to allow some amateur dirty dealings to destroy what they’ve already built.
Imagine if a developer no one knows creates an extension that’s been around for ten minutes and has zero backing from any large corporation.
That is when you raise an eyebrow and start to panic if they have your information.
This is not the case with Capital One.
2. Uses A Monitoring System
Capital One uses the same monitoring and security systems for Capital One Shopping as they do for their other financial programs.
They have a credit card company that passes millions of dollars through their systems, not to mention the banking sector.
They encrypt everything that passes through their system regarding your payment information.
They take the following information from you.
- User-provided information
- Retail account login credentials
- Social Media Data
- Payment Information
- Transaction path
3. Don’t Fear The Third-Party Reporting—It Helps Them To Help You
User-Provided Information
Let’s go over some of these so that you can get a bigger picture of what’s going on and why they collect this information.
First, the user-provided information can be used for research purposes.
Along with the other five pieces of data they collect, it is there to tell them what you are most likely to shop for.
Think about it this way: Consumers will complain whether they get relevant ads or irrelevant ads, where does a company win?
We live in a digital age, and we are presented with a lot of ads.
There were many complaints from people in the last decade that they would get ads for things they would never think of buying, and they found it annoying.
Today, large companies want you to see ads for things that you would be most likely to buy.
If you were to look at it from a business and marketing standpoint, you would see quite clearly that there is a formula to use, an algorithm of sorts to show you what you might like in an instance.
This is what the Capital One Shopping app and extension are doing.
It’s the same with Amazon and any other retail company that exists.
Not even just retail, your doctor does it with medication brands in the patient portal.
It’s a thing, and it’s there to help you.
Does it always get used for your greatest good against the company’s?
No.
Companies exist to make money.
They will use the information to get the most out of it.
The point here is that it doesn’t mean it’s a scam or a security risk.
Social Media Data
This one we will use to illustrate how social media data is important for nothing more than what you may buy and what you look at.
Some people consider this an invasion, but here’s a newsflash for you: If you are on social media, you are already being invaded.
The platform tracks your movement and words and friends and makes judgments about you already.
Your information is already being compiled into neat little categories, so you are easier to figure out and sell to.
When Capital One Shopping does it, it’s probably that much safer.
You don’t have strangers publicly viewing and reading your information to anticipate your movements.
In fact, you have a better security system than social media because they don’t have to handle the money of thousands of people, not like a retail shopping app does—and certainly not like a credit card company and a banking institution.
Their whole brand revolves around protecting your money, and if they don’t, they don’t have a business—period.
The other three collection points in the aforementioned list are collected and encrypted for the reasons already stated here.
There are no hidden reasons for collecting this information.
Third-Party Reporting To Affiliates
Some of the information does go to third-party sources and affiliates.
People are making money off your purchases, clicks, and such.
However, they do not report this information so that third parties can spam you with advertisements.
This shows that they are good at doing their business but safe.
What would happen to a large company’s reputation if they allowed that to happen? A lot would happen, and nothing good for their bottom line.
As was stated before, the company can’t afford security foul-ups or amateur maneuvers such as selling information or spamming.
They also don’t need it to grow, and in fact, they don’t need Wikibuy’s either, so if they have to cut it loose and sell it, they will, long before they’ll pay for unnecessary drama.
4. Accessible On More Than One Browser
For the same reasons you can trust the information they collect, you can see that being accepted on more than one browser is another good sign.
If it’s not a rookie extension, and it’s officially accepted on not just Chrome, but all large browsers, like Firefox, which doesn’t play with security, then it’s most likely safe.
When a company begins to expand, especially a financial one, and then you watch them expand into a broader spectrum of contact with the public, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about safety.
They also have to have a good communication system to help with glitches and cyber-attacks.
Keep thinking about people’s money and credit.
There must be superior hacking security in the first place.
It will cost them no more to expand that to the extensions they’re on than they already pay to protect the other financial institutions they own.
It’s simple to understand, and it makes a lot of sense once you weigh out the facts and turn off the fear.
Profiling companies based on size and what type of business they’re in primarily is not a bad thing.
It’s not discrimination.
You would scrutinize a company for its environmental footprint, right?
Maybe so.
If you’re willing to do that, it’s worth scrutinizing a company’s security practices without shame.
5. Strong Trustpilot Rating And BBB
The next thing we need to look at is a strong 4.5 to 5 stars on Trustpilot.
Trustpilot is one of the largest reviewing platforms that is used today.
Millions of people refer to them as they do Google reviews.
It is hard if not impossible to pay for a review there.
You are possibly aware that this happens routinely, and there are ways to avoid that due to companies cracking down.
Even Amazon will cancel you if you are caught doing that.
The Better Business Bureau, which has been around for decades, is another surefire way of knowing what is happening between this company and its customers.
Trustpilot is a good source for online businesses as well as brick-and-mortar for your local area and such, but the BBB is one that has quite a bit of clout that handles all types of businesses whether they are registered with the BBB or not.
If they are, that’s even better because they have to uphold a certain standard or they lose their BBB rating.
It’s like an AAA road club.
If they take on a hotel and they are AAA-rated, then people trust them.
They know automatically that the rating means they must be on their toes.
One complaint and that could be the end.
View Capital One Shopping the same way as they do have the seal of approval from the BBB and Trustpilot.
Security Is A Two-Way Street
Now, there are a lot of things that can cause security issues when using this or any app or extension regardless of what they have done on their end.
Cybersecurity is a two-way street.
For example, if you are sitting in a public space and you open an extension or even your banking website, and you walk away to go to top off your coffee, someone can steal your information by just taking a picture of it with their phone.
This is just a simple example to illustrate how security breaches happen due to user neglect as well.
It’s up to you to take some steps to protect yourself while you are using the extension.
First, make sure you are not using Wi-Fi that is shared or public.
This makes things so much more secure from the get-go.
Just avoiding this one thing can stop a lot from happening.
Make sure you don’t have open Wi-Fi at home either.
Don’t piggyback anyone else’s Wi-Fi.
This leaves you open to cyber spying and your information leaking out into your neighbor’s realm.
Use Those Privacy Settings
Privacy settings are underused in most cases.
They’re used more for social media than anything else and are oftentimes neglected everywhere else.
Use all the privacy settings you can in order to keep your information tight to your chest.
Marketers use your information through weak security gateways.
Use them on your mobile device, tablets, and PC.
Keep them enabled, and if you can’t find them, ask for help.
Marketers love to find your information, and sometimes these settings are hard to navigate on purpose.
Browse Safely
Using an extension in and of itself is not dangerous, but hackers can get to you through them in sneaky ways that have nothing to do with the extension itself, but the browser.
For as many companies and extensions, there are fake ones impersonating them.
You first must make sure that you are downloading the right extension from the official place.
Otherwise, with a small, seemingly insignificant difference in the URL, a hacker can indeed get you to download a counterfeit extension.
Make sure you aren’t tempted by clickbait.
The hacker could already know, from a quick glance at your browsing habits, what you want to see.
If you click on it, you may be infected by malware and worse.
Identity theft is also a thing, more now than ever.
Use a VPN, a virtual private network, to use the internet without being traced in a public place—or even at home on your Wi-Fi if it’s not so private.
This VPN system is easy to secure, Google it, and the instructions will be there on what that is and how to set it up.
It’s a system that hides your IP address in a way just to make it simple.
The location is also hidden, so people can’t track you.
One warning about this, though: some websites won’t work well through this, and some companies don’t like it.
If you work online on a freelance website or you work remotely, they may not allow you to use a VPN.
Watch The Apps You Download
Always know where your apps come from.
Hackers make it a point to trick you into downloading apps and other things that have malware attached so they can steal your information and track your moves.
They can be hidden in weather and traffic apps, popular games, and more that you would be tempted to download.
Don’t do it unless you trust the source that it comes from or you download it from the official site or Google Play Store if it’s an app.
One note to remember about anything online you want to click on or download is that you can just Google the name of it and the word “scam”.
You will get something about that app or extension or game.
Rest assured, the odds are against you being the first and equally as against you being the only person who is downloading this.
There will be information on it as to whether it’s safe or not, where you can get the safe version, and if you should stay away from it.
Be Password Smart
Passwords are another overlooked issue.
People aren’t very serious about their passwords and even less about changing them as often as they should.
The first thing you need to start with is a password log.
Make sure you have one so you don’t forget passwords that you are changing often because you should be.
The second thing to do is to create a different password for everything you do.
That sounds like too much work, but it’s the best thing you can do for your cyber safety.
It’s the part that you are responsible for, so do it all the way.
The passwords should have letters that are both randomly caps and lower case, numbers, and special characters.
Don’t choose passwords that can be easily guessed by, say, your social media like your birthday or a place you have visited.
Let’s choose a popular town or city and a birthday for an example, like Gettysburg1228 or NYC1985, etc.
It’s too easy.
The best ones look like this: Akys19@@##!fge.
Of course, you don’t want to use one exactly like that, but similar.
They make no sense and have no logical order.
They only have the components that are required.
Some websites will require certain characters, and some will not allow you to use special characters.
Bottom Line
The bottom line when it comes to Wikibuy being safe or not is yes, it is.
There are many different layers to cybersecurity and to how businesses work to collect information and to advertise to the people who are using their apps and extensions.
There is much to learn about cyber safety.
The main thing to remember is that Capital One Shopping is a safe extension because they are a financial company with substantial backing and reputation.
They will not allow disruption in their security on a shopping extension to destroy their reputation as a financial company.
These companies must be held in high regard and the shopping app and extension is not the strongest part of the business, so they wouldn’t risk the other aspects of their company with an unsafe system.
Just remember to be responsible for your own cyber safety, and you’ll have a great Wikibuy experience.
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