[Sigtis-l] SIG-III discussion on trust in information

[SIG-III Blog admin]

With the annual meeting just around the corner I would like to issue a new
call for comments on the SIG-III Blog!  The Blog's web address is

www . neasist . org/icisc/blog/

In connection to Global Plaza at this year's Annual Meeting, the Blog is
hosting a discussion on trust in information.  Any and all of your views on
what causes someone to trust or not trust the information they receive are
welcome.  To spark further thoughts and discussion, here is a summary of the
discussion we have had thus far on the questions and topics posted to the
blog:  how do we define trust, how do we measure it, what are its key
aspects, e-commerce and data mining, government surveillance, and government
censorship.

Discussion of the first question has highlighted the fact that there is no
universal definition of trust, and that perceptions of trust are based on
localized sociocultural environments.  Building trust accordingly revolves
around creating an open social environment that is inclusive and accepting
of others – particularly on a localized scale, but beyond that on an
international scale as well.  Such an environment will allow members of a
society to feel comfortable placing their trust in a society as a whole, and
by extension in information generated by that society.  The discussion also
branched into the issues of how people think about "culture," as well as how
the Internet and ever-increasing access to digital information is changing
perceptions of trust at both individual and collective levels.

The discussion of measuring trust considers the issue of Internet users
correlating a webpage's authority or trustworthiness with its placement in
Google search rankings (and notes that such a correlation is a problematic
measure of authority or trust).  Responding to the fact that additional
information exists in a non-digitized format, one commenter examines the
possibility of comparing perceptions of trust in print as opposed to
Web-based sources of information, and defining metrics for such a study.

The discussion on the different aspects of trust has identified a large
number of different aspects.  So far these include the development of
automated software to encourage civic participation and e-governance, the
influence of the blogosphere and other media in the political arena and
whether the instantaneous info they provide may be trusted, and the ease of
access to personal information offered by social networking sites (and
related issues of trust, such as being concerned about who may be viewing
this personal info as well as popular reactions to recent privacy complaints
concerning facebook.com).  Reflecting the many aspects of trust as a
concept, the Blog discussion expands down many different avenues.

The discussion on the different aspects of trust also bleeds into the
discussion on e-commerce and data mining.  Blog commenters write about the
interests of companies collecting data on product sales vs. the privacy
interests of consumers, and the conditions under which a person will trust a
company with personal purchase data.  This discussion has specifically
considered the presence of a 3rd party logo (such as PayPal or VeriSign) in
commercial transactions online, personal information that companies collect
about who purchases what and privacy policies disclosing what they do with
that information, whether they do so at the aggregate or individual levels,
and anonymizing Web services that hide data about your surfing habits from
data miners.  The e-commerce discussion considers both the interests of
businesses in data mining and the interests of people who are having their
data mined, and presents an open discussion between these two positions.

The government surveillance and censorship topics have raised some
provocative discussion of how governments use, protect, or share information
about people within their borders.  Issues such as international airlines
and railway systems making passenger data available to government bodies,
government wiretapping of phones (and possibly Internet connections), and
Internet censorship in China have highlighted questions on how governments
should be allowed to access, monitor, and/or use personal information.

We welcome your views!  Your ideas on any of the above topics will help
enrich our discussion of trust, so please, check it out and let us know your
thoughts!  Last but not least, if you have any questions or comments please
send a message to sigiiiblog at gmail.com.  Thanks!

The SIG-III Blog team
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