Think Twice Before Buying From Trump's Campaign Store
August 1, 2016

When you make an online purchase, you try and take confidence that your personal information, including your credit card information, remains secure throughout the transaction. A good indicator is in the URL bar of your browser. If it shows a green lock, that means you're secure. If it doesn't then stop what you're doing and walk away. Like wise you can always look at the protocol part of the URL. If it's HTTP, then you're on a page that isn't secure. If it's HTTPS, then you are secured, though that doesn't mean the certificate encrypting your data is valid. The green lock is the key.

Let me show you an example.Head over to the store for Hillary Clinton's campaign:

https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/

You notice the green lock?

hrc

And if you look at the URL, there's that HTTPS. As matter of fact if you try to go to the insecure URL for her store, it automatically sends you to the secure version. Go ahead and try:

https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/

Let's carry this test over to the site of Donald Trump, the man who only hires the best. If you look at his main site you'll see that handy lock:

trump_main

And just like Clinton's store example above, go to the insecure URL and you get redirected to the secure page:

http://www.donaldjtrump.com/

Great! But what about where the really sensitive stuff happens, like his store? Well if you click on the link on the top of his main site you are taken to:

http://shop.donaldjtrump.com/

No HTTPS and no green lock:

djt_insecure

Incidentally he does have a secure URL for the store, but you have to manually go there.

So while Trump wants to make sure you are secure when viewing his main site, he apparently doesn't care about your personal information, including credit card numbers, when you are buying from his store.

This has been a public service announcement from Crooks and Liars, provider to all our readers in hope of keeping them safe. And thanks to commenter Gavin for bringing this to our attention.

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