A taxonomy for trusted services

Abstract

Electronic commerce must be trustworthy. This includes (technical) trust in the computerised systems and networks, and (organisational) trust in the honest intent of the counterparts. To establish trust, in general one has to rely upon infrastructures consisting of trusted services. In particular for organisational trust, a plethora of different services may be needed. This paper suggests a taxonomy to characterise trusted services in general. The virtues of a taxonomy are easier comparison and a common terminology, increased understanding, and facilitation of tasks like requirements specifications. © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers.