Clark read a story recently in the Orlando Sentinel about the many risks of online shopping, especially at holiday time. It’s so easy to get taken these days in online transactions because many of the Web sites out there are phony. Just about anyone can set up a domain name and start peddling goods. So, how can you protect yourself? One way is to visit whois.net, the site that lists the person or company that registered the site and when it was registered. If the site was just registered, you know it is probably not legit. Epinions.com and bizrate.com are other sites that rate companies and their customer service. You can also protect yourself at the payment stage by using checkout.google.com, the rival to PayPal. So, if you don’t know the site by name or reputation, always check it out before you buy.