Technologies for Trust in Electronic Commerce

Lack of consumer trust in e-commerce merchants, e-commerce technology, and the social, financial and legal infrastructures of the e-commerce environment, poses a major challenge to the large-scale uptake of business to consumer e-commerce. Most traditional cues for assessing trust in the physical world are not available online. This paper gives an overview of some of the work being done to devise alternative methods for assessing, communicating and establishing trust in this environment. Examples are drawn from a wide range of disciplines including human–computer interaction, usability, marketing, information technology, mathematics, linguistics and law. Industry, self-regulatory and government initiatives aimed at building consumer trust and confidence in e-commerce are also discussed.