Most sites have information pages dedicated to educating users about the risks of Internet scams.

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These also open new concerns about lost intellectual property, Internet scams, and long-term return on investment.

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Mr Doyle and Ms Granholm, both former attorneys-general, have focused on modern styles of crime, such as terrorism and internet scams.

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And the government should do more to publicize and alert us about Internet scams, fraud, and fake work-at-home schemes by creating a Virtual Work Hotline.

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Understandable in the age of terrorism and Internet scams, sure.

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But there is plenty of evidence that all sorts of scams flourish on the internet, from identity theft to phoney auctions and bogus requests for data.

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Despite high-profile examples of internet security breaches, such as the recent incident of phishing email scams, 76% of the survey group thought the internet was a safe place "as long as you know what you're doing".

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But the key to halting such scams does not lie in demonizing the Internet and trying to legislate away a patchwork of legal loopholes which can never be closed.

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Penny stock scams rank right up there with ponzi schemes in the classic financial scams played on naive investors, but the advent of the Internet has raised the pump-and-dump problem to a new level.

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Whether it's buying Internet stocks, or speculating on real estate, lots of people can make very bad investment decisions or fall for scams.

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