Topic Ten

We wouldn't give our credit card to a stranger on the street so why do we give it to strangers online?

1) What does this meant by the following statements?

Trust is not associative (non-symmetric)
Trust is not always equal on both sides, one party can be trusting but the other party may be deceiving.

Trust is not transitive
This means that just because someone else trusts someone doesn't mean other people will trust them. For Example: If i trust Bill and i trust Bob that doesn't mean Bill and Bob trust each other.

Trust is always between exactly 2 parties
Trust needs to involve to parties, it can not be one sided. If there is not trust from both parties then trust does not exist.

Trust will involve either direct trust or recommender trust

Direct trust is learning if you trust someone from your own experience

Recommender trust is trusting someone on the recommendation of someone else. 

2a) Have a look at the following websites. What are some of the elements that have been incorporated to increase your trust in the sites? If there are also some aspects which decrease your level of trust describe them as well.

eBay
What eBay has going for them in terms of been trusting is a strong well established brand name which is already trusted by many. What also works in eBay's favour is they work as a third party, to their clients. Therefore is a trust issue occurs it would most likely be between the two individuals rather than between eBay and a individual. eBay does offer many ways individuals can gauge how trustworthy the sellers and buyers are such as feedback history and star ratings which is easily accessible to the buyer or seller to gauge what kind of person they are buying from. eBay also uses paypal as their preferred check out system to provide extra protection to the user.

ANZ
ANZ is a well known Bank. Their website is easy to use and navigate around offering easy access to needed information. Just by looking at the website, it looks trustworthy and doesn't look at all 'dodgy'. Out of all the websites i use the one i expect full trust from is my banking website as it involves some of the most private and confidential information.

Thinkgeek

Until searching it i had never seen or heard of 'thinkgeek' nor had any family or friends which to me already meant that i didn't trust this site. Once i started having a look around the site it was very easy to navigate and i easily found what i was looking for the Privacy Statement. This offered information about how the site keeps information and ensures that there is no breach of trust such as: 

• 128-bit encryption to and from the servers and web browser.
• Credit card numbers are not stored in our database. We keep on file only the last 4 digits to verify the card that was used.

They also offered a link to biz rate (which i have never heard of) that gives a rating of what customers think of the site. After reading through some feedback majority of it was positive. Personally i don't think i would purchase from this site but i believe that it would be trustworthy enough if i was interested in their products.

PayPal

Paypal eliminates fraud by offering buyer protection, therefore paypal needs to appear as a trustworthy website. Elements on the website such as Verisign Identity Protection, Australian Financial Services Licence number and ABN been freely available on the first page immediately gains trust. It shows they have nothing to hide.

2b) Find a web site yourself that you think looks untrustworthy.

I've been looking for cheap flights over the past 4 weeks, one site i have come across is cheapflights although this site is offering the best prices i am reluctant to purchase as it seems a little to good to be true. After navigating through the page i found the privacy policy. Which states the site isn't 100% secure and they they 'try there best not to pass on your details' i don't think ill be buying from this site as they have no affiliation with large airlines, nor do they have anything that suggests they are a trustworthy site.