Abstract
From a sociological and anthropological viewpoint, the ability of complete strangers to carry out transactions that involve significant risk to one or both parties should be complicated by a lack of trust. Yet the rise of e-commerce and “sharing economy” platforms suggests that concerns that seemed prevalent only a few decades ago have been largely assuaged. What mechanisms have been used to facilitate trust between strangers online? Can we measure the extent to which users trust each other when interacting online? This article reviews the existing literature on cyber trust and proposes directions for further research.
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Notes
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See also R. Michie (1999). The London Stock Exchange: a history. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Marcel Mauss’ seminal essay “The Gift” was the first to document the social obligations that attended gift-giving, but the topic has been taken up by numerous anthropologists since.
The Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association maintains a list of incidents involving Uber and Lyft: http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents.
Although for more expensive items, negative ratings suppress price premiums. See S. Ba and P. Pavlou (2002). Evidence of the effect of trust building technology in electronic markets: Price premiums and buyer behavior. MIS Quarterly, 243–268.
Amazon listing: https://www.amazon.com/Images-SI-Uranium-Ore/dp/B000796XXM/ref=pd_sbs_236_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=M46PMC7PCNW192NW4K34 last accessed on January 19, 2017.
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Amitai Etzioni declares that he has no conflict of interest.
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I am indebted to David Kroeker-Maus for extensive research assistance on this article.
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Etzioni, A. Cyber Trust. J Bus Ethics 156, 1–13 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3627-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3627-y