Trust Over Time on the Internet

Peter SwireMoritz College of Law

Penn Law SchoolSymposium on the Evolving Internet

October 19, 2012

Gus Hurwitz Paper on Trust• Hurwitz:

– “Historically, Internet has been built upon trust”

– “Internet is increasingly a post-trust architecture”

• Swire:

– Trust has been a big issue on the Internet at least since the start of E-Commerce

– Trust architecture in most ways is stronger now than in the past

Previous Episodes on Trust• “Trustwrap” (2003)

– Trust on eBay began with reputation– Over time, multiple additional trust-building

mechanisms, such as escrow• Penn Symposium 2005: “Elephants and Mice

Revisited: Law and Choice of Law on the Internet”– “Elephants” are subject to legal rules and create

trust-enhancing mechanisms– As problems arise, trust responses arise

Trust Builds Over Time

• Lack of F2F from start of E-Commerce

• Brand

• Credence goods to experience goods– PayPal and credit cards online

• Internet time and adaptive protection, on both seller and buyer side

• 2 billion users and continued growth

Trust Institutions Build Over Time

• Elephants – Law and consent decrees– Complaint departments, take-downs

• Experience rating and fraud detection– Risk scores for transactions

• Time for law to develop– $50 rule as example of consumer protection– CAN-SPAM– Boilerplate

Sources of Decline in Trust?

• Actions on the Net are more important, so we are less tolerant of risk– Critical infrastructure protection

• Complexity and difficulty of monitoring by consumers

• Perhaps creators of distrust (cyber-attackers) are winning in the cat-and-mouse game

Conclusion

• Every four years we hear “this is the most crucial election of our lifetime”

• We similarly have today’s round of challenges to trust on the Internet

• Let’s be clear what today’s challenges are, without having to say they are worse now than they have ever been