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overview
This profile considers online privacy seals and other
trustmarks, discussed in our Privacy
and Consumers guides.
It covers -
The
following pages provide comments about the evolution of
the trustmark industry
and an indicative inventory
of major online trustmarks, past and present.
marks in space
Who can you trust in cyberspace, where the facade presented
by deft software does not necessarily equate to good performance,
where many consumers feel that they are unequipped to
use tools such as P3P
or PICS and where the
borderless nature of the net (or merely its newness) has
encouraged bad practice by entrepreneurs or malicious
individuals?
The discussion, in our Consumers guide,
of trust suggests that businesses, governments, consumer
advocacy organisations and individuals have some interest
in online trustmarks. At its simplest, an online mark
(sometimes characterised as a seal) is an indicator that
the site operator has agreed to be bound by a code of
practice. The mark is an advisory, rather than a guarantee
of performance, since the binding is often weak and certification
problematic.
The marks are issued by industry associations and consumer
bodies (generally on a less-than-cost or cost recovery
basis) or by commercial entities whose raison d'etre is
to generate profits through conduct of a trustmark program
and ancillary services such as legal compliance audits
and training.
Given different jurisdictions with different markets,
perceived needs and start-up funding there are a range
of marks in Australia and elsewhere. There is no global
standard for online trustmark schemes or for automated
validation of marks.
Some are purely local. Others, such as the ICRA content
label, are found across the world. Some have a narrow
focus, for example on privacy or items sold via eBay.
Others attempt to serve as an indication of business good
practice (for example covering data collection, handling
of disputes, fulfillment of commercial transactions) and
may be tied to an alternative dispute resolution scheme
offered by an industry association or commercial dispute
resolution service.
Varying levels of enforcement mean that some marks, at
best, are statements of aspiration whereas others are
perceived to be more meaningful because the issuer has
the resources - and will - to effectively police the mark.
Ernst & Young - perhaps playing catch-up with
competitor and trustmark scheme operator KPMG - looked
on the bright side in its 2001 E-Security & Privacy
paper, claiming that
While
there may be some enforcement, jurisdictional and perception
hurdles to overcome, with full e-commerce assurance
from independent, reputable organisations, web seals
can ensure privacy policies are followed, aid market
differentiation, build and support brand strength, support
dispute resolution and offer indemnification and regulatory
compliance.
responses
Responses to online marks - and particular seals - have
been mixed.
Some observers, for example, have criticised the process
through which mark are acquired, in particular schemes
based on self-assessment. Critics argue that self-assessment
is inherently open to abuse by the unscrupulous or merely
incompetent.
Some note the poor performance of certifying bodies, including
prominent seal issuers such as TRUSTe,
characterised by critics as slow to respond to consumer
concerns about abuses or lacking the resources to monitor
compliance with their rules and ensure that the trustmark
is removed from a site that breaches those rules. One
example is Natalie Regoli's 2002 Indecent Exposures
in an Electronic Regime paper (PDF).
Others question whether commercial trustmark schemes necessarily
involve a conflict of interest or simply doubt a business
model that requires significant investment for building
a national/global brand and then maintaining it through
ongoing promotion, compliance checks and litigation against
entities that abuse the particular mark.
Still others note the plethora of competing trustmark
bodies, ranging from those restricted to a particular
jurisdiction to those with global ambitions, a presence
in all major markets and compliance infrastructure to
match.
That proliferation is an issue because it inhibits recognition
(and thereby the value) of particular marks. If you can't
tell whether a mark is "for real" will you as
a consumer trust it or respect the site that features
the mark? Will it make commercial sense for you as a site
operator to badge your site with a mark (or marks), particularly
if badging involves a fee or compliance requirements?
Questions of transparency and activity are of particular
importance, since ultimately end-users must trust the
trustmark.
Few trustmark scheme operators provide statistics regarding
the removal of marks from sites. Many provide raw figures
about the number of seals issued or the number of disputes
dealt with. However, for both specialists and consumers
it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of a particular
scheme. Is scheme x biased? Are disputes (and dispute
resolutions) meaningful? How many of the marks, once issued,
are still active?
trusting the mark
A recurrent response by consumers (and by site operators)
is that they are either not aware of particular marks
or question their effectiveness.
In essence, many people do not trust marks and instead
rely on an assessment (informed or otherwise) of a site,
recognition of an offline/online brand and decisions about
what is at stake.
Users of online trustmarks must
- recognise
the mark
- perceive
that the mark has value
- understand
what it means
- believe
that the site operator will comply with obligations
regarding that mark
- believe
that the entity that issued the mark to the operator
will act quickly, vigorously, equitably and effectively
to address actual/alleged breaches of its rules, implicitly
to serve consumers rather than an individual site and
thereby ensure the mark's legitimacy
- hope
that there will be action by other consumers or by government
regulators if the mark issuer (or mark bearer) does
not live up to commitments regarding the mark
- assume
that the mark is current, rather than a relic from defunct
trustmark schemes
- assume
that the site operator is entitled to the mark (eg not
making fraudulent use of the ICRA mark on an adult content
site).
Perceptions
play a major role in trust. Perceptions that mark issuers
have been slow to act, have tacitly ignored substantive
breaches or have provided site operators with inappropriate
wriggle-room (eg redefined the problem) accordingly mean
that building trust in marks is difficult.
In discussing privacy we've noted the sobering conclusion
in Robert LaRose & Nora Rifon's 2003 paper
Your Privacy is Assured - Of Being Invaded: Web Sites
With & Without Privacy Seals that
It
is perhaps ironic that the Web sites that seek to publicize
their concern for consumer privacy by displaying privacy
seals were actually more likely to intrude on privacy,
at least in terms of the amount of personal information
that they requested from consumers. And, aside from
a greater tendency to deposit cookies, the unsealed
sites were no more likely to invade users’ physical
privacy through involuntary intrusions on their computers.
Naïve consumers who view seals as a form
of privacy protection may thus be disappointed.
The
study conducted by those authors also asks
How
effective were the seal authorities in encouraging compliance
with FTC guidelines for notice, choice, access, and
security? BBBOnLine sites were more likely to make assurances
about secure transmission of information than TRUSTe
sites. However, compliance with the guidelines was somewhat
less than perfect in all key aspects. For example, while
almost all of the seal program participants provided
notice of the types of information collected, about
an eighth did not reveal how information is collected,
offer to correct errors, or maintain a complaint procedure.
And, while most sealed (but also unsealed) sites informed
consumers of their choices, many did not really offer
any choice other than leaving the site or foregoing
service.
A
2000 study of the US CPA WebTrust seal by Kris Portz,
Joel Strong, Bruce Busta & Ken Schneider
noted that
Subjects
were asked how much protection against fraudulent business
practices the WebTrust seal provides or implies. Fifty-nine
percent correctly indicated that “WebTrust helps
to minimize the possibility of fraud,” while 22%
incorrectly indicated that “customers are absolutely
protected against fraud.”
This result is cause for concern. If 22% of consumers
believe that WebTrust absolutely protects against fraud,
CPAs could be exposed to legal action. The disparity
between a consumer’s perception of the assurances
and what the assurances actually are creates an expectation
gap. Accountants have a long, painful history of dealing
with the expectation gap, and the presence of one regarding
the WebTrust program must be carefully examined and
every effort made to mitigate it.
Joseph Turow's 2003 Americans & Online Privacy:
The System is Broken study (PDF),
highlighted in our discussion
of privacy statements, noted similar consumer misinterpretation
of 'signals' from site operators. It claimed that 57%
of US adults who use the internet at home incorrectly
believe that when a site has a privacy policy, it will
not share their personal information with other sites
or entities.
Turow's consumers valued their privacy: when "presented
with a common version of the way sites track, extract,
and share information to make money from advertising,
85% of adults who go online at home did not agree to accept
it on even a valued site".
However, 64% of the online adults say they have never
searched for information about how to protect their information
on the web; 40% say that they know "almost nothing"
about stopping sites from collecting data, 26% know "a
little" and only 9% (immodest or otherwise) report
knowing "a lot".
That raises questions about proposals to address trustmark
problems by printing official guides to web seals.
lessons from offline marks?
Misinterpretation, distrust of or simply non-recognition
of online trustmarks is consistent with experience offline.
That is evident in studies such as Beltramini & Stafford's
1993 'Comprehension & Perceived Believability of Seals
of Approval Information in Advertising' (in Journal
of Advertising, XXII), Kamins & Marks 1991 'The
Perception of Kosher as a Third Party Certification Claim
in Advertising for Familiar and Unfamiliar Brands' (in
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
19, no 3) and Parkinson's 1975 'The Role of Seals and
Certifications of Approval in Consumer Decision Making'
(in Journal of Consumer Affairs, 9).
AVS
Age Verification Services (AVS) - aka Adult Verification
Services - are sometimes confused with trustmarks. They
are discussed here
and in the broader discussions elsewhere on this site
regarding the Adult
Content industry and Censorship
& Free Speech.
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