Financial institutions could direct customers only to trusted sites that end in .citi or .boa, for example.

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It's worth knowing what your trusted sites' URLs look like and keep an eye out for any changes to the site as you conduct your business.

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Only download applications from well-known, trusted sites.

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Only two of the 3, 000 or so pharmacies studied were certified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy as "trusted" sites.

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"The Empowered Patient" assumes you already know the basics of good Internet searching: .gov and .edu sites are to be trusted, as are sites for major health centers (think MayoClinic.com) and health organizations (such as the American Cancer Society's cancer.org).

CNN: Tips for savvy medical Web surfing

Since then, I have slowly been climbing out of the paranoia fear, using Facebook to log in to other sites, verifying my real identity with certain trusted sources.

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