Familiarity Breeds Con-victims: Why We Need More Effective Trust Signaling

The past 10 years have seen a plethora of research on trust in online interactions. In the late 90s, the issue was whether people would be willing to trust the Internet enough to order and enter their credit card details online. Most of the academic research and commercial advice published then focused on 'how to increase user trust online' by making websites 'user friendly' and having a 'personal touch' e.g. in the form of photos of company staff. Unfortunately, much this advice on how to make your Internet presence trustworthy is now being used by perpetrators of phishing scams, who are using the latest 'trustworthy UI design techniques' to trick users into revealing authentication credentials and other personal data. A key trust issue that has emerged with the huge popularity of social networking is users' voluntary (and sometimes ill-judged) disclosure of personal information, and accidental sharing of that data by applications and other users. Whilst many new applications and services have emerged, little progress has been made in helping ordinary users to work out who they can trust online, and who they can’t. Trust is only required when risk and uncertainty are present. Since it serves as a shortcut for a full risk-benefit analysis and mechanisms to assure that a transaction partner delivers what is being promised, there are significant economic benefits to trust-based environments [1]. In online transactions, uncertainty is increased because transactions partners are separated in space, and – unless delivery is instant (e.g. when buying a music track) in time.