In Brown’s (2011) article, he listed out eight issues that continue to drive the scholarly discourse of Technology and Society. The issue I am going to talk about in this entry was not mentioned in the list but it is happening in daily base around us--- the E-commerce.
As the rapid growth of Internet business interaction, there are more and more E-commerce platforms in use, such as eBay, Paypal, Amazon, E-banking, and other numerous online stores. All of these E-commerce platforms require login account. A question needed to be raised here: Have you ever had an experience that when you sign up for an account, some information is required in order to apply the account but you are reluctant to provide it? As to myself I feel OK to provide some general information such as birthday, gender, preference or hobbies. But when it comes to more sensitive/private information like credit card number, I would take an extra precaution about what I am dealing with in this application. According to Bomil Suh& Ingoo Han’s research (2003), they indicate that these feelings are due to not only the deficiencies of Internet and E-commerce security, but the customer’s distrust of such measures. Additionally, customers are concerned about on-line payment security, reliability of companies, and lack of privacy policies.
It’s interesting that although the E-commerce trust issue is vastly discussed in North America, I found that the security level of E-commerce here is quite low compared to China: Online banking is automatically activated when the account is issued; eBay is not binding with the cellphone. Moreover, one can operate an online purchase payment by only providing the credit card number, name on the credit card, expired date and the security code on the back of the card. The online purchase in China is far more complicated. One needs to provide your ID and other relevant information to open the online banking. The online payment needs to binding with the phone and with every purchase one needs to enter verification code, which is sent from the site to your cellphone to certify that the purchaser is the owner of the credit card. It maybe that some online stores primarily do not have this complicated payment system but the customer’s distrust affects its revenue and as a consequence, they have to build a firm security system to gain customer’s trust.
But the problem is that, although the security system is relatively high in China’s E-commerce environment, there are, from time to time, security lapses that tightened customer’s nerves. The vulnerabilities of the Internet, is the major problematic issue that vacillate customer’s trust for E-commerce platforms. As Bomil Suh& Ingoo Han stated: “When a customer trades through the Internet, anyone from anywhere around the world may be able to access the information being sent. The risk of information theft, theft of service, and corruption of data may become a reality. In addition, the possibility of fraud increases significantly on the Internet because of the difficulty of accounting for the use of services, that is, anonymity.” To solve this problem, Chinese government carries out the “real-name-policy”. But frankly speaking, this does not help at all. People who determined to commit a crime will find their way to violate the policy though its breach.
The discourse of online-banking security, transaction safety of E-commerce online banking is continually thriving. Simultaneously, the crime and the business are still acting on. It seems that it is our choice to trust the Internet or not as a saying that “take the risk and you are responsible for its own consequences”.
Reference:
Charla, G, B. (2011). Technology in society - next steps in our scholarly discourse. Technology in Society, 33(3-4), 181-182.
Bomil Suh, & Ingoo Han. (2003). The impact of customer trust and perception of security control on the acceptance of electronic commerce. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 7(3), 135-161.
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