Most websites get an unusually high number of credit card chargebacks. Many of these are due to clever hackers who use anonymous proxy servers to their benefit, allowing them to place orders and enter contracts as though they were legitimately completing an operation. Unfortunately, once the order is placed from an anonymous proxy server, there is no real way to trace the transaction back to its originator, resulting in a loss of revenue for the website - and the webmaster!

One or two of these can be costly; several of these could effectively wipe-out most small websites and their businesses. To say this matter should be of utmost concern to all webmasters who run sites which handle credit cards - or on-site purchases, in general - is putting it lightly. You need some form of security - something that helps you find out more about your visitors - something that will help in the investigation, should that become necessary.

IP2Proxy is a free webmaster resource. The downloadable Proxy IP Address List serves as an anonymous proxy server blacklist, effectively denying known anonymous proxies. It basically tells you to whom the IP address was registered when it visited your site.

You could create your own proxy list, but there's just no way it would ever be as effective as the one provided. Monitoring every known IP address ranges, the sophisticated algorithm detects anonymous proxies, adds them to the list, and recompiles; a new list is available for download everyday.

If you run a website, you should check it out. If you run a website on which transactions take place, you simply cannot afford not to check it out. If you like the free version, a more robust suite of tools is available at cost.