Trust and theWeb � A Decline or a Revival?

Piotr L. Cofta
2019 Journal of Web Engineering  
The Web was conceived as the 'better place' where trust could have flourished, but this is unlikely to be true anymore. There are two research areas that should be at the forefront of addressing this problem: Web Science and computational trust. This paper concentrates on what, if any, is the role of research in bringing trust into the Web, as the topic of trust currently takes a backseat. Amid the stable progress of research in trust in social psychology, economy, and politics, the bleak
more » ... of computational trust and trust on Web deserves an analysis. The paper analyses and reflects on the history of research in trust to conclude that this branch of research withered away before reaching maturity of a discipline. From there, it explores what it takes to accelerate and stabilise the development of research, and what challenges should be tackled first. Still, the Web is central to our lives: we entrust it with our plans and opinions, we seek answers to burning questions, we use it to conduct financial transactions, we utilise it to stay in touch with friends and family. As the share of our lives that we spend 'on the Web' grows, the question whether the Web can be trusted becomes increasingly important. Research should be at the forefront of our activities: paving the ways, anticipating problems, delivering solutions and defusing potential showstoppers. Considering that the Web has been with us at least since 1989 [6], the question of trust should have been solved many times over, and we should be enjoying a fully trustworthy web. This is not the case. Overly optimistic assumptions about the human nature embedded into blueprints of the early web did not meet the reality. The ability to contact everybody everywhere, the ability to reach any piece of information in an instant did not make us significantly better. If anything, the web allowed us to uncover the side of the human nature that we would rather forget of. It would not be a problem had trust research been vigorously studied the area and delivered improvements and solutions. But instead interest in trust and the web significantly waned over the years, as if the research community do not believe anymore that trust is worth their time. This paper formulates the thesis that there is a decline in research about trust that may affect trust on the Web, to the detriment to us all. It uses the mixed methodological approach, reflected in its structure. It starts with stating and scoping the problem. From there it uses the historical literature review, highlighting what is emphatically called the 'golden years' of trust research. Statistical bibliographic analysis is used to demonstrate the recent decline in general research interest, despite occasional valuable contributions. At this junction, the question of the usefulness of trust is answered through a series of examples. Then the generalisation of the problem leads to the listing of potential challenges that may explain the decline. Each challenge is supplemented by an indication of how to overcome it. propositions of how to improve the situation lead to conclusions that close the paper. Scope This paper focuses on research in computational trust and Web Science, as they should be at the forefront of studying, defending and re-introducing trust to the Web. The construct of trust is native to psychological and sociological research, as it mostly relates to relationships between people within the society. Trust and the Web -A Decline or a Revival? 593 However, it is researched across many disciplines, including information technology, and each one has its own definition and methodology when it comes to researching trust. Research in trust tends to recognise the definition that relates to our decisions and actions: that people often behave above and beyond what the pure risk-based utilitarian approach should suggest. This surplus is called 'trustworthiness' and it can be acknowledged by actions where people make themselves dependent above what their utilitarian risk-based approach suggests. Those actions are called 'trust'. It is widely acknowledged that trust and trustworthiness deliver benefits that the calculative, risk-based (hence "trustless") approach cannot. While the valuation of those benefits vary, the reasons for such benefits lie e.g. in simplifying decision making [26] , minimising social friction by decreasing transaction costs and increasing the speed of transactions [16] , in enabling various interactions that otherwise could not have a place (such as innovation and knowledge sharing) and in other similar effects [40] .
doi:10.13052/jwe1540-9589.1781 fatcat:xikw5uvc3vhudmyn2exiyodj7q