Community trust stores for peer-to-peer e-commerce applications

Abstract

E-commerce applications have evolved from web-based selling via the Internet to selling in a P2P manner. P2P can enhance e-commerce applications to create lower cost systems compared to conventional client-server systems. However, P2P e-commerce applications will only be acceptable to users if they can provide robust, secure and equitable services to the peers involved during commercial transactions. In this paper, we propose use of a P2P shared store for trust information to support community based e-commerce applications. Nowadays, it can be economical and cheap to implement either in the cloud or in a distributed manner over the platforms of participating peers. Usage of a cheap and secure community store for trust data provides an effective alternative to conventional trusted third party support services for e-commerce transactions. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.