Nearly six in every ten consumers say they may cut back on clicking this holiday season because they're worried about identity theft while they e-shop, a survey released Wednesday said.

"There's no doubt that consumers are far more wary of online threats as we approach the shopping season this year," said David Stark, the privacy officer at TNS, one of the two organizations which conducted the survey. "Retailers have to give consumers a reason to trust them with their personal information."

According to the poll, which was also co-sponsored by privacy vendor TRUSTe, 58 percent of the more than 1,000 Americans surveyed said they may reduce their online shopping because of identity theft and other concerns, a 9-point increase over last year.

In fact, 8 percent said they wouldn't shop online at all, a bump up of 2 percent since 2003.

Leading e-shoppers nightmares this season were:

* Identity theft, which 52 percent cited as a reason why they may trim their online shopping. In 2003, only 35 percent named ID thievery.

* Fear of credit card theft, which was also up dramatically (44 percent this year compared to 30 percent in 2003).

* Spyware, a brand-new concern in 2004, was named by 44 percent of those polled.

* Spam, which consumers believe only increases when they buy goods from a Web site. This year, 42 percent named spam as one of their shopping nightmares; in 2003, the number was 38 percent.

"The results show consumers have been paying attention to the onslaught of spyware, phishing, identity theft, and credit card fraud," said Fran Maier, TRUSTe's executive director, in a statement.