Building a Trustworthy Ethical Approach to Cloud Computing

Abstract

Cloud computing has gained wide acceptance by business enterprises all over the globe. With the advancement in the popularity of cloud computing, research is being directed to study the effect of various aspects affecting it. One of the most important issues that impact cloud computing is the human perception of it. The inclination of users, across the globe, towards cloud computing is affected by the amount of trust they repose in the services and the perceived level of ethics being observed in maintaining these services. This paper studies the impact of ethics and trust on Cloud computing and its subsequent effect on e-commerce. A model is proposed to incorporate trust and ethics for an improved e-commerce environment (ETCM), Ethics Trust Cloud model. Further a survey is conducted to deduce the benefits of cloud computing on e-commerce where the respondent provides opinion about the prominent factors which contribute towards building of trust in the service provider and the possible relationship between observance of ethical practices and trust-building. The data is collected by a specific questionnaire, which is designed to understand the user’s perception about these concepts and their possible influence on cloud computing environment. Findings of the survey and subsequent analysis reveal a positive correlation and regression between trust and ethics.