Trust Marks Research Articles

Trust Computational Model for IoT using Machine Learning

Aims and Background: The Internet of Things has evolved over the years to a greater extent, where objects communicate with each other over a network. Heterogenous communication between the nodes leads to a large amount of information sharing, and sensitive information could be shared over the network. It is important to maintain privacy and security during information sharing to protect devices from communicating with malicious nodes. Objectives and Methodology: The concept of trust was introduced to prevent nodes from communicating with malicious nodes. A trust computation model for the IoT based on machine learning concepts was designed, which evaluates trust based on the Trust Marks. There are three trust marks, out of which two are evaluated. The three trust marks are knowledge, experience, and reputation. Knowledge trust marks are evaluated separately based on their trust property mathematical formulations, and then based on these properties, machine learning-based algorithms are applied to train the model to classify the objects as trustworthy and untrustworthy. Results: The effectiveness of the Knowledge Trust Mark is measured by a simulation and confusion matrix. The accuracy of the trained model is shown by the accuracy score. The trust computational model for IoT using machine learning shows higher accuracy in classifying the objects as trustworthy and untrustworthy. Conclusion: The experience trust mark is evaluated based on its properties, and the behaviour of the experience is shown over time graphically.

An Exploration Into Trust and Privacy Management in a Digital Age

This study aims to inspect the effects of the privacy management and realize the relationship between use of trust and the quality of the privacy policy for the sites. This research applied four criteria of notice, access, choice and security that were identified by the FTC as Fair Information Practice to assess 476 websites for the trust and privacy management. Results indicated that approximately 36% of the websites used a trustmark, and that HiTrust/VeriSign was the most commonly used by businesses. The preferred trustmark varied by industry, such as sports sites preferring Verified by VISA, real estate sites preferring SOSA, telecommunication sites preferring HiTrust/VeriSign, and travel sites preferring TWCA. However, BBB Online and TRUSTe were displayed very hardly. The main findings showed that there were no obvious relationships between the use of trust marks and the notice criterion. On the contrary, there were very strong relationships between the use of trust marks and the access and choice criteria for all industries and overall.

Testing green fiscal policies for green investment, innovation and green productivity amid the COVID-19 era

This article measures renewable energy firm-level pure innovation efficiency, green productivity, technical efficiency, scale efficiency and total investment efficiency from micro input–output factors using Banker, Charnes and Cooper’s (BCC) data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Its main novelty is that it clearly explores the effective impacts of government subsidies and tax rebate policies on renewable energy firms’ investment efficiency using China’s renewable energy firm-level panel data. Our observational findings indicate that between 2001 and 2018, the aggregate degree of total investment performance from renewable energy firms rose steadily before declining. Renewable energy firms had larger ranges of total investment efficiency and size efficiency, and their levels of pure technological efficiency were both greater than 0.457%. At the 16% trust mark, current government subsidies and taxation rebates had dramatically positive effects on pure technological efficiency and total investment efficiency; additionally, government subsidies have a stronger positive impact on total investment efficiency and pure technical efficiency than taxation rebates. Furthermore, the ownership concentrations of renewable energy companies greatly encourage pure technological efficiency, size efficiency and total investment efficiency, and asset returns will significantly increase their average degree of total investment efficiency and pure technical efficiency.

Of Binding Provisions and Trust Marks; Roadmap to a Global Legal Framework for the Digital Economy

The digital economy is dynamic, fast expanding, and truly global. The legal framework that currently applies to the digital economy is either divided, fragmented, ad hoc, out of date, or nonexistent. Some legal initiatives quixotically aim at stopping cross-border data flows, reflecting consumer fears regarding privacy and security or government fears about losing tax revenue. The fragmented regulatory environment does not help companies ‘scale up’ digital technologies; in turn, this hampers innovation and global economic growth. In addition, some less digitally developed actors complain that current rules allow or even foster unfair competition. This article proposes a new and global legal framework for the digital economy: structured cooperation between states and companies under the administration of an autonomous body. States may resist giving up sovereignty, and citizens may fear erosion of their legal rights. However, uniform, consistent, and enforceable rules would benefit both states and citizens. Tax revenue could be fairly assessed and distributed, for example, and citizens and businesses would no longer face divergent privacy and security rules. Regulation would become more legitimate because both public and private stakeholders would participate in rulemaking, including smaller players and digital latecomers. Companies that subscribe to the framework would receive a global ‘trust mark’ that would boost consumer confidence. In sum, a global legal framework, as contemplated, would match the global character of activities in the digital economy

Effect of Price, Promotion, Trust Marks and Customer Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty in Packaging Products Mineral Water Aqua

Effect of Price, Promotion, Trust Marks and Customer Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty in Packaging Products Mineral Water Aqua

KEBIJAKAN OPTIMASI PAJAK PENGHASILAN DALAM KEGIATAN E-COMMERCE

E-commerce poses a challenge to establishing a viable tax system. The Indonesian Directorate General of Taxes have yet to establish a viable data collection system on the number of active e-commerce business persons and how much they earn annually. The main question to be discussed here is how tax income regulation in Indonesia responds to e-commerce activities, taking into consideration the existing self-assessment system? The author shall attempt to answer this question by using a juridical normative approach. This research leads to one recommendation, i.e. to improve government revenue from e-commerce tax in Indonesia a rule should be established obligating e-commerce actors to obtain certificate of reliability (trust mark). This will improve government and public monitoring capability.

KEBIJAKAN OPTIMASI PAJAK PENGHASILAN DALAM KEGIATAN E-COMMERCE

E-commerce poses a challenge to establishing a viable tax system. The Indonesian Directorate General of Taxes have yet to establish a viable data collection system on the number of active e-commerce business persons and how much they earn annually. The main question to be discussed here is how tax income regulation in Indonesia responds to e-commerce activities, taking into consideration the existing self-assessment system? The author shall attempt to answer this question by using a juridical normative approach. This research leads to one recommendation, i.e. to improve government revenue from e-commerce tax in Indonesia a rule should be established obligating e-commerce actors to obtain certificate of reliability (trust mark). This will improve government and public monitoring capability.

Relevance of Trust Marks and CE Labels in German-Language Store Descriptions of Health Apps: Analysis.

BackgroundIn addition to mandatory CE marking (“CE” representing Conformité Européenne, with the CE marking being a symbol of free marketability in the European Economic Area) for medical devices, there are various seals, initiatives, action groups, etc, in the health app context. However, whether manufacturers use them to distinguish their apps and attach relevance to them is unclear.ObjectiveThe objective was to take a snapshot of quality seals, regulatory marks, and other orientation aids available on the German app market and to determine whether manufacturers deem such labels relevant enough to apply them to their apps, namely as reflected by mentions in app description texts in a typical app store (ie, Apple’s App Store).MethodsA full survey of the metadata of 103,046 apps from Apple’s German App Store in the Medicine and Health & Fitness categories was carried out. For apps with German-language store descriptions (N=8767), these were automatically searched for the occurrence of relevant keywords and validated manually (N=41). In addition, the websites of various app seal providers were checked for assigned seals.ResultsFew manufacturers referenced seals in the descriptions (5/41), although this would have been expected more often based on the seals we were able to identify from the seal providers’ Web pages, and there were 34 of 41 that mentioned CE status in the descriptions. Two apps referenced an app directory curated by experts; however, this is not an alternative to CE marks and seals of approval.ConclusionsCurrently, quality seals seem to be irrelevant for manufacturers. In line with regulatory requirements, mentions of medical device status are more frequent; however, neither characteristic is effective for identifying high-quality apps. To improve this situation, a possibly legally obligatory, standardized reporting system should be implemented.

Optimal laser marking of 2D data matrix codes on Cavendish bananas

A traceability system is an effective tool to guarantee safety in horticultural products and to improve supply chain transparency. A direct data matrix (DM) code created with carbon dioxide laser (wavelength 10.6 µm) can be used as a trust mark on bananas. In this study, green bananas were marked with the above-mentioned CO<sub>2</sub> laser. Subsequently, the samples were held under storage conditions. Images of the codes on bananas were captured by using two different cameras; i.e. hyperspectral imaging camera and charge-couple device (CCD) camera. Image processing was used for evaluating print quality of 2D codes based on the ISO/IEC 15415 standard. The quality of the codes on bananas mainly depends on some parameters: laser power, laser energy, marking time per module and storage time. The best readability results were achieved by using laser power of 1.8 W and marking time of 0.09 s per data matrix module, whereby an 80–100% readability of DM codes after the storage was obtained.

Balancing upstream–downstream interests in flood risk management: experiences from a catchment‐based approach in Austria

River floods usually do not stop at administrative borders. The respective location of municipalities along a river creates different options and dependencies, commonly referred to as upstream–downstream relations. This regional dimension of flood risk calls for catchment‐based approaches in flood risk management as advocated by the EU Flood Directive. In this article, we present and assess the case of an intermunicipal cooperation in Austria which aims to alleviate flood risk and coordinate planning activities based on a catchment approach. The authors apply an established model of water governance to characterise the governance features and to assess the governance qualities and governance capacities of the intermunicipal cooperation. Findings show that the selected case qualifies as a suitable governance instrument to address the main policy objectives. Existing functional ties, shared (flooding) experiences, and mutual trust mark key success factors, indicating that proximity – in its many different forms – is crucial to overcome power asymmetries and spatial misfits in catchment‐based flood risk management. However, intermunicipal cooperation is weak when it comes to ensuring binding land use regulations, showing the need for a complementary use of governance arrangements and formal instruments of regional land use planning in flood risk management.

FT-NIR analysis of different garlic cultivars

Garlic represents a source of various biologically active phytomolecules. The content of phenolic compounds in garlic varies greatly with genetic, agronomic, and environmental factors, and the cultivar is the primary factor which determines this variation. The aim of this study was to analyse by Fourier transform near infrared spectroscopy (FT-NIR) different garlic cultivars, organically grown or commercial ones, coming from four different geographical areas. Garlic samples were collected from four different locations, and then analyse in the spectral range of the NIR radiation, which extends from 800 to 2500 nm, using three different modules (integrating sphere, transmission and fibre optic modules) that provide tools for analysing most liquid and solid samples. For all the measurements, no sample preparation was performed, since this analytical technique is non-invasive and non-destructive, and each sample was subject to repeated measurements. All the FT-NIR garlic spectra were undergone to a post processing analysis and compared between them. The comparison enhanced a clear distinction between biological and commercial garlic spectra. In particular, the last ones were characterised by a greater number of absorption peaks. This different trend in the FT-NIR spectra could be related to the possible contamination by toxic waste of the cultivation soil. Consumers are gradually looking for quality seals and trust marks on food products, and expected manufacturers and retailers to provide products of high quality. In this context, the FT-NIR represents a valid instrument for food classification and an important task for quality control and identification of foodstuff product adulteration.

Do we need innovative trust intermediaries in the digital economy?

Even almost 20 years after the launch of online shopping (B2C E-Commerce) as an important pillar of the digital economy, a significant number of consumers are still reluctant to buy goods and services via a website due to lack of trust. Study after study has shown that this lack of trust is due to privacy issues, IT security and performance risks. As a consequence, a few years after the advent of the digital economy trust marks began to be introduced which vendors can display on their websites in the hope of remedying this lack of trust. Several studies exploring the effectiveness of trust marks showed low awareness and an inadequate understanding of such certification. The aim of this repeat study is to explore whether awareness and understanding of German trust marks have changed from 2007 to 2012 through increased Internet experience and online purchasing activity as well as through the wider proliferation of Internet trust marks. The results show that the problems associated with lack of awareness of Internet trust marks identified earlier still persist and do not appear to have diminished over time.

Dr Google

Objectives: To assess and analyze the information and recommendations provided by Google Web Search™ (Google) in relation to web searches on the HPV vaccine, indications for females and males and possible adverse effects.Materials and Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study of the results of 14 web searches. Comprehensive analysis of results based on general recommendation given (favorable/dissuasive), as well as compliance with pre-established criteria, namely design, content and credibility. Sub-analysis of results according to site category: general information, blog / forum and press.Results: In the comprehensive analysis of results, 72.2% of websites offer information favorable to HPV vaccination, with varying degrees of content detail, vs. 27.8% with highly dissuasive content in relation to HPV vaccination. The most frequent type of site is the blog or forum. The information found is frequently incomplete, poorly structured, and often lacking in updates, bibliography and adequate citations, as well as sound credibility criteria (scientific association accreditation and/or trust mark system).Conclusions: Google, as a tool which users employ to locate medical information and advice, is not specialized in providing information that is necessarily rigorous or valid from a scientific perspective. Search results and ranking based on Google's generalized algorithms can lead users to poorly grounded opinions and statements, which may impact HPV vaccination perception and subsequent decision making.

Applying Semantic Web technologies to improve the retrieval, credibility and use of health-related web resources

The number of health-related websites is increasing day-by-day; however, their quality is variable and difficult to assess. Various "trust marks" and filtering portals have been created in order to assist consumers in retrieving quality medical information. Consumers are using search engines as the main tool to get health information; however, the major problem is that the meaning of the web content is not machine-readable in the sense that computers cannot understand words and sentences as humans can. In addition, trust marks are invisible to search engines, thus limiting their usefulness in practice. During the last five years there have been different attempts to use Semantic Web tools to label health-related web resources to help internet users identify trustworthy resources. This paper discusses how Semantic Web technologies can be applied in practice to generate machine-readable labels and display their content, as well as to empower end-users by providing them with the infrastructure for expressing and sharing their opinions on the quality of health-related web resources.

Involvement and the influence of online third-party endorsements

Obtaining consumers' trust is widely acknowledged as a key element in establishing and developing successful relationships. Recognising this, an emerging body of work has investigated the sources of consumers' trusting beliefs about online vendors. One apparent source of trust available for vendors is the use of trust marks – a type of third part endorsement. The existing empirical evidence on their use is, however, at best mixed in spite of the strong theoretical case. One possible reason for these mixed results is that, while existing research considers trust marks as pieces of information, it fails to acknowledge how pieces of information are processed in consumer decision making. Following the cognitive processing theory, this paper sets out a case on how consumers process information (e.g., trust marks) according to the level of consumer involvement. On the basis of this conceptual work, propositions and hypotheses are proposed for future research. Specifically, the paper proposes that trust marks will have their desired (maximum) effect in establishing trust when they act as primary central cues in situations of high involvement. Moreover, they must be both familiar and recognised, operating in the absence of other central cues.

전자상거래에서의 소비자보호에 관한 법.제도적 연구

전자상거래는 1990년대 후반 이후부터 폭발적인 성장을 거듭해 가고 있다. 그러나 전자상거래의 비대면성과 익명성, 국제성, 일방성, 현혹가능성 등과 같은 특성으로 인하여 소비자의 피해가 증가하고 있다. 따라서 본 논문에서는 소비자보호를 위한 법 제도적 개선점을 다음과 같이 종합적으로 도출해 보았다. 첫째, 전자상거래소비자보호법상 청약철회권 행사기간을 연장할 필요가 있다. 둘째, 전자상거래는 비대면적으로 이루어지기 때문에 소비자가 착오를 일으킬 가능성이 높으며, 소비자가 자신의 착오를 입증하기가 용이하지 않으므로 사전에 착오가 발생하지 않도록 정확한 정보가 제공되도록 해야 한다. 셋째, 전자약관에 대한 인증마크 제도를 도입하여야 한다. 넷째, 소비자의 안전한 개인정보관리를 통한 개인정보유출과 이용에 대한 불안감이 없도록 법적, 제도적 그리고 기술적 대책이 강구되어야 한다. 다섯째, 인터넷 신뢰마크에 대한 엄격한 감독이 요구된다. 마지막으로 온라인 조정에 있어서 절차상 전송된 메시지나 문서에 대한 해킹 등을 통하여 제3자의 개입과 간섭이 있을 수 있으므로 당사자간의 명확한 인증을 통하여 시스템상에서의 보안성을 높일 필요가 있다. The electronic commerce keeps going through a tremendous growth since the latter half of 1990's. But the consumer damages are being increased from characteristics such as non-confrontation, anonymity, internationality, unilaterality and possibility of temptation. Accordingly, this thesis has derived legal and systematic improvements for consumer protection in general as follows. First of all, it is necessary to extend the period to exercise the subscription withdrawal rights according to electronic commerce consumer protection law. Second, the electronic commerce has high possibility of causing errors by consumers because it is performed by non-confrontation and the accurate information must be provided to prevent errors in advance because it is not easy for consumers to prove their own errors. Third, a certification mark system on electronic agreement has to be adopted. Fourth, the legal, systematic and technological measures have to be adopted to prevent from having a sense of fear toward leaking or using personal information through a safe personal information management. Fifth, a strict supervision on internet trust mark is required. Finally, because the intervention or interference by a third party may take place through a hacking on messages or documents sent according to procedure in terms of online settlement, it is necessary to raise security on the system through a precise authentication between concerned parties.

Online privacy, government surveillance and national ID cards

Introduction This study explores whether internet users' concerns for personal information privacy, principally manifested as online privacy, are related to their attitudes to government surveillance and national ID cards (often perceived as a surveillance tool). This is a relationship which needs to be explored in-depth because of three concurrent trends -- first, the push towards e-government, where citizen-government transactions are increasingly conducted online; second, the growing use of smart cards, RFID tags and other portable information collection and transmission devices by governments and businesses; and third, calls for greater government surveillance, both online and offline, to counter terrorism in the post 9/11 environment. While prior research has dealt with individual concerns about online privacy and individual concerns about government surveillance, studies exploring the relationship between the two are limited. This study seeks to fill that gap by surveying Internet users across five cities which vary in their experience of government surveillance and the use of national ID cards -- Bangalore, New York, Seoul, Singapore and Sydney. Personal information privacy is the individual's ability to personally control information about him/herself. Such information could include anything from one's birth registration details, to the identities and coordinates of one's next-of-kin, income and expenditure patterns and even health records. In countries where day-to-day transactions with commercial and government entities are increasingly being conducted online, involving the electronic collection of personal information, online privacy is the principal manifestation of personal information privacy. As e-commerce and e-government services become more pervasive, Internet users' concerns about online privacy are likely to grow. Individual online privacy concerns have been classified into improper acquisition, improper use and privacy invasion. 12 Concerns about improper acquisition relate to unauthorized access to personal information, improper collection of one's private information and improper monitoring of consumers' online activities. Concerns about improper use cover unauthorised analysis of consumers' online shopping behavior and the subsequent business-to-business transfer of such analyses. Concerns about privacy invasion refer to the transmission of information to Internet users without their prior consent, such as spam, as well as the improper storage of personal information. To maintain their online privacy, Internet users can engage in self-protective behaviour such as opting out, using privacy enhancing technologies, reading privacy policies, or checking trust marks. Studies have been conducted to test concern about online privacy as a function of demographic variables. Sheehan 10 found that gender was a significant factor in that female consumers were generally more concerned about their personal privacy than male consumers. In general, older consumers 2 were also more concerned about online privacy. The relationship between consumers' experience with the Internet and online privacy concerns has also been explored. Bellman et al. 2 reported that consumers' online privacy concerns diminished with Internet experience. As more consumers use the Internet and the average level of experience rises, online privacy concerns should gradually diminish. In general, studies have demonstrated that demographic variables and Internet-related experiences significantly affect Internet users' concern about online privacy.

Alternative Regulatory Cases Challenging Consumer Policy

By means of the concept of postmodern politics, we provide insights into how alternative regulation is challenging consumer policy. New actors, new forms of interaction, and new goals are emerging alongside established forms of consumer policy. In particular, we examine two alternative regulatory cases: trust marks and consumer-generated information systems. They both exemplify alternative regulation of electronic commerce, which has facilitated regulatory innovation for over a decade. On the basis of our analysis, we suggest that governmental consumer policy cannot imitate the alternative regulatory solutions. We also encourage governmental actors to consider building bridges to consumer networks. This would broaden the scope of consumer policy and be in line with the modes of operation of governmental actors. Consumers are themselves contributing to this rethinking of governmental consumer policy. By networking, consumers provide each other with empowering information on consumption. Doing so on the massive scale enabled by information and communication technologies, they are challenging conventional consumer policy, which can no longer address consumer needs as it could in the pre-Internet days. New issues are emerging for consumer policy to address, and networked consumers are already contributing to policy.

On Desideratum for B2C E-Commerce Reputation Systems

This paper reviews existing approaches to reputation systems, their constraints as well as available solutions. Furthermore, it presents and evaluates a novel and comprehensive reputation model devoted to the distributed reputation system for Business-to-Consumer (B2C) E-commerce applications that overcomes the discussed drawbacks. The algorithm offers a comprehensive approach as considers a number of issues that have a bearing on trust and reputation such as age of ratings, transaction value, credibility of referees, number of malicious incidents, collusion and unfair ratings. Moreover, it also extends the existing frameworks based on information about past behaviour, with other aspects affecting online trading decisions which relate to the characteristic of the providers, such as existence of trust mark seals, payment intermediaries, privacy statements, security/privacy strategies, purchase protection/insurance, alternative dispute resolutions as well as the existence of first party information.

Información sobre salud en internet y sellos de confianza como indicadores de calidad: el caso de las vacunas

Objectives To find out the prevalence of quality trust marks present in websites and to analyse the quality of these websites displaying trust marks compared with those that do not display them, in order to put forward these trust marks as a quality indicator. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting Internet. Participants Websites on vaccines. Main measures Using “vacunas OR vaccines” as key words, the features of 40 web pages were analysed. These web pages were selected from the page results of two search engines, Google and Yahoo! Results Based on a total of 9 criteria, the average score of criteria fulfilled was 7 (95% CI 3.96–10.04) points for the web pages offered by Yahoo! and 7.3 (95% CI 3.86–10.74) offered by Google. Amongst web pages offered by Yahoo!, there were three with clearly inaccurate information, while there were four in the pages offered by Google. Trust marks were displayed in 20% and 30% medical web pages, respectively, and their presence reached statistical significance ( P=0.033) when fulfilling the quality criteria compared with web pages where trust marks were not displayed. Conclusions A wide variety of web pages was obtained by search engines and a large number of them with useless information. Although the websites analysed had a good quality, between 15% and 20% showed inaccurate information. Websites where trust marks were displayed had more quality than those that did not display one and none of them were included amongst those where inaccurate information was found.