Public Trust Online Michael Crowley N DL 245 Year 2 Business Entrepreneurship and Management

Company's Perspective  Small companies websites would not be well known enough to trust so they use larger more trusted distributors. E.g. Boots.  large companies such as amazon and eBay have large budgets to spend in online security.  Many solely online companies sell highly specialised products which would not be usually available in department stores.  Larger online companies need better online security systems because they get hacked more often

Publics Perspective  People can be tracked online and this can be used against them as a form of spying..  People may be in the public eye and may have previously said or written something out of context or under the influence used to harm their image.  People may be at danger of online money scams.  There are people who disguise themselves as others online through robbery of photographs to forge false relationships to use to their advantage.

Social Networking  Facebook and other social networking sites link themselves with popular websites by asking people to register with the popular website through Facebook. This allows Facebook to view what you personally do on the other website gathering information about you.  This is dangerous as it would be harmful for any of these websites to get hacked because most peoples online activity is interlinked. This brings to reality the fact that anything put on the internet stays forever and that you must be careful what you write as it could be harmful to your own interests in the future.

Terms and Conditions  Some people do not shop online because there are so many terms and conditions of every purchase that the convenience of it is lost through reading these terms.  Though many people just ignore these and agree anyway which is dangerous because terms and conditions are legal documents and agreeing to them obliges you to follow what they say or you may be penalised.  An example of terms and conditions being used against the interests of the public is when Flickr recently added a creative commons licencing agreement into its terms and conditions which allows it to sell and do what it wants with any of the photos from people who agree to that. This has resulted in tens of millions of photos being made available on yahoo for reuse and reposting by Flickr..

Trusting V.s Risk Taking  Trust is defined as ‘’the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trust or, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control the other party’’ (Mayer et al., 1995 p.712).  Trusting behaviour is taking a risk within a relationship. For example I like coca cola products so if they would bring out a new drink I would try it because I trust they know how to make good drinks, whereas  Risk Taking behaviour is the same but without being part of a relationship, so if a company you have never heard before wanted you to buy their new drink you are more likely not to because you have no reason to trust them.

Reasons for People to have trust issues online  When going onto certain websites such as ‘’let me watch this’’ (a popular free movie streaming site) there is a high likelihood of viruses attacking your computer  False misleading advertisements ‘’you are todays winner’’  Not having the product in hand can be a problem as the website may have gotten the size wrong or the list of ingredients wrong and you may be allergic to it or it might not be exactly what you expected.  Websites not telling the full truth about a product and getting away with it because they are technically not telling lies. This lets them make the products out to be better than they are.

Reasons for people to have trust issues online  Reviews about products and services which may conflict with what is advertised. For example a person reviewing a moisturising shampoo and saying it is drying,  and conflicting reviews themselves, so one review saying something is great and another saying the opposite about the same product.  Fake reviews made up by company workers lying and saying how great their products/services are.

Reasons for people to have trust issues online  People may not trust the delivery service which the producers of said product use and they are afraid that the product may get lost or might be broken by the time it gets to them.  People may not trust websites to be 100% up to date. For example they might state something as out of stock when in fact it may have been in stock or vice versa.

Questionnaire Findings  1. Everyone who answered was between the ages of 18 and 24  2. Most people would not buy from a website that gave their computer viruses and rightly so.  3. Everyone who answered had made an online purchase showing it is popular among younger people  4. Most peoples amount of online shopping has increased in the last 5 years  5. Half people believe what they read online and the other half do not because they know anyone could post up lies on Wikipedia  6. Most people read product reviews before purchasing online. This is to get an idea weather what you are buying is truly or falsely advertised

Bibliography  Ruppel, C., Underwood-Queen, L., & Harrington, S. (2003). e-Commerce: The Roles of Trust, Security, and Type of e-Commerce involvement. e-Service journal, Volume 2, pp Retrieved from Project Muse database.  Grabner, S. (2002). The Role of Consumers Trust in Online Shopping. Journal of Business Ethics, Volume 39, Issue 1-2, pp Retrieved from Springer Link Database.  Duhe, S. (2007). New Media and Public Relations. USA:New York: 29 Broadway  Pavoul, P., Gefen, D. (2002). Building effective online marketplaces with Institution-Based Trust. Information on system research, Volume 4. Retrieved from informs.org.  Newser-Read less know more. (2013). Amateur Photos hit the big time online. (2009). Retrieved from the-big-time-online.htmlhttp:// the-big-time-online.html  Survey Monkey. (2013). Public Trust Online Survey. (2013). Retrieved from  Flickr Photos now show up in yahoo image searches, retrieved January 12 th 2013, from guide#Web_documents_and_siteshttp:// guide#Web_documents_and_sites  Argos sign, Amazon customer review photo, Anti wrinkle cream photo, Coca- Cola sign, Photo of glasses on book, Facebook logo, Undercover Detectives, Computer in chains cartoon, (2013), Retrieved from