It’s far safer than giving your credit card to a waiter at a restaurant. Most Web sites that sell merchandise or services use "secure" transaction methods through a technology known as encryption. Encryption is a mathematical formula that jumbles the words and numbers of information, and only the intended recipient has the code to decipher the information. Yes, some encryption experts have broken these codes and some encryption systems have had flaws, but the chances of a transaction being intercepted and your credit card numbers "stolen" are very remote.