According to the WebWatch report, released Wednesday, 80 percent of all American Web surfers are at least somewhat concerned about the threat of identity theft posed by engaging in online activities.

As a result of those concerns, at least 30 percent of the 1,500 people interviewed for the survey said they have reduced the amount of time they access the Internet.

In addition to going online less frequently, 53 percent of the respondents told WebWatch that fears of ID theft have stopped them from giving out their personal information to Web sites and online marketers, while 25 percent said they are no longer purchasing items from e-commerce sites.

Americans are also increasingly skeptical regarding images they find on the Web, with 47 percent reporting that they have viewed what they believed to be manipulated pictures online. Despite that trend, 67 percent said they trust online news sites to use genuine photographs.

While this data is concerning to anyone who owns a web based business. The upside is that it appears that many people are becoming more savvy. With this the first reaction is of course to simply avoid all on line transactions. It is clear that with doubt that everything you see or read might not actually be true. Let's hope that people will learn that going out in town can be equally dangerous. Where ever your credit card is handed to someone who walks to the register with it the same dangers of the web are also present.

Some level of paranoia is a good thing to protect your identy from theft. Making informed decisions about when to offer their trust to a specific web business is very important. I personally like the injections about blogging web sites being untrustworthy. It would seem that the people are smart enough to form their own opinions.