Help & Support >> Security & Privacy

Shopping with the PC World Bookstore is safe and secure. We use industry standards to protect your personal details and the security of your credit card information as it is sent over the Internet.

When you click on the confirmation button to place your order, your details are immediately encrypted. Once we have taken payment for your order, your credit card details are deleted from our computer system.

....and now for the science.......

Our site uses industry-standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to provide encryption of personal information such as your credit card details. In this way, information passed between your computer and our website cannot be read in the unlikely event of someone intercepting it. Credit and debit card transactions are secure.

We will only accept orders using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology - this means you cannot inadvertently reveal personal information by using an unsecure connection. Microsoft Internet Explorer (3.0 and higher), Mozilla Firefox (1.0 and higher) and Netscape Navigator (3.02 and higher) all support this secure connection. If for any reason this option has been disabled on your browser, you will not be able to transact or login until you reset these options.

• For Netscape go to Communicator, Tools, Security Info, Navigator and tick 'Enable SSLv2' and 'Enable SSLv3' boxes
• For Internet Explorer go to Tools, Internet Options, Advanced and tick the 'Use SSL 2.0' and 'Use SSL 3.0' boxes under 'Security'
• For Mozilla Firefox go to Tools, Options, Advanced and tick the 'Use SSL 2.0' and 'Use SSL 3.0' boxes under 'Security'

You can check that you are shopping in a secure environment by looking for either a locked padlock icon (Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox) or an image of a key (Netscape) in the grey bar at the bottom of your screen. This will appear on any page where you are entering personal information (such as your credit card details) - no other page will transmit information about you.

We do not use 'cookies' for collecting personal information about you. Our cookies do not contain any personally identifying information.
Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to your computer's hard disc for record keeping purposes.

We do use cookies for gathering information such as the user activity on the website. This information helps us to improve the efficiency and design of the website. Cookies can make the web more useful by storing information about your preferences on particular sites, thus enabling website owners to provide more useful features for their users. Most browsers are initially set to accept cookies. If you would prefer, you can set your browser to refuse cookies but this will limit your ordering to one book per order.

We use the login process to identify you when necessary, for example when you wish to buy a product. You do not need to log in to browse the PC World Bookstore website (http://www.pcworld-books.co.uk), but if you do not log in you will not be able to view the status of previous orders or buy as we cannot identify you.

What information will the PC World Bookstore hold about me?
Computer Bookshops (our fulfilment partner) holds all your registered information plus your credit card details for the purposes of processing and fulfilling your order, as well as for legal, aftersales and marketing purposes.

PC World has appointed the PC World Bookstore to be its approved supplier of computer books. The PC World Bookstore will only pass your details to PC World if you have given permission to receive marketing updates by e-mail. To see more information about personal information and security go to the Customer Service Menu.

The PC World will never sell, trade or rent your personal information to any third party.
You are able to amend these options at any time from the 'My Account' page.

This privacy policy only covers The PC World website (http://www.pcworld-books.co.uk). Any links within this site to other websites are not covered by this policy.