Toward a Generic Model of Trust for Electronic Commerce

In this paper we present a generic model of trust for electronic commerce. The basic components of the model are party trust and control trust. We argue that an agent’s trust in a transaction with another party is a combination of the trust in the other party and the trust in the control mechanisms for the successful performance of the transaction. The generic trust model can be used for the design of trust related valueadded services in electronic commerce. To illustrate this design use of the model we compare in this paper two activities in electronic commerce that require trust, namely electronic payment and cross-border electronic trade. We show with the model that these two activities actually require two different types of trust, and that complete different services are needed to create these different types of trust.