Towards Enhancing Trust on Chinese E-Commerce

Abstract  译：摘要
E-Commerce has been much more popular in western countries  where the development of E-Commerce sysytems has been relatively matured. While the technology and social credit environment are well developed,E-Commerce is relativelt new and receives fewer acceptances within commercial industries in China.Building trust has been identified as one of the major concerns in E-Commerce.
译：电子商务在西方国家已经非常流行，并且电子商务系统在这些国家的发展也相对成熟。虽然在中国科技和社会诚信已经得到了较好的发展，但是电子商务相对来说比较新奇，在商业行业内并没有被很多人接受。建立诚信体系已经被当作电子商务的主要任务。
In this paper, we will develop an computational model, which may be used to improve the trust-building relationship among consumers, retailers and authorities. This model considers a number of factors including direct experiences,customer recommendations, and authority certification,while parties involved in the E-Commerce activities can confidently establish and reliably enhance the trustworthiness.
译：在这篇文章中，我们会建立一种可提高消费者、零售商和政府部门信任关系的计算模型，此模型考虑多项因素，包括直接经验、客户的建议和权威认证，而涉及电子商务活动的各方可以信心十足地建立和可靠地提高可信度。
1. Introduction 译：绪论
"With the rapid development of Internet technonlogy, the landscape of exchanging information and doing business has benn completely changed".As a new way of doing business, E-Commerce is increasingly affecting,changing and event repalcing the readitional commerce approach.People are increasingly accepting and using E-Commerce than ever before.Without any doubt,many network application,based on initial Door to Door to B2B,B2C,and C2C models,have a profund influence on the global economy.However most of the development of E-Commerce is primarily achieved within a handful of countries,particularly in countries like US, Japan and some of European countries.Since the advent of the Internet in the late 1990's in China,various applications can be seen in the following years,which stirred thousands of ambitious young Chieses people to establish their own business on-line with a dream of getting wealthy overnight. Over the past few years, almost 70% of the growth in Internet users from all over the world occurred only in China.However,in terms of E-Commerce development, there is still a gap between China and the developed countries.With the increased popularity of the Internet and the continuous improvement of Internet technologies, the development of Chinese E-Commerce can be attributed to various problems and barriers. Some of these problems such as payment method,distribution problem, and security issues have been identified as the biggest barrier that needs to be overcome in long-term.
译：“随着互联网技术的快速发展，信息交换和开展商务的方式已经完全发生改变”。作为一种开展商务的新方式，电子商务正越来越多地影响、改变甚至替换传统商务模式。人民正在以前所未有的态度逐渐接受和使用电子商务。毫无疑问，很多建立在室内的B2B、B2C 和C2C 模式的网络应用，正在对全球经济产生深刻的影响。但是大部分电子商务的发展最主要是在少数几个国家，尤其是美国、日本和其它一些欧洲国家。随着中国九十年代后期互联网的普遍应用，在接下来的许多年里出现了各种应用，激励着成千上万怀着一夜致富的梦想的年轻人在网上建立他们自己的事业。近年来，全世界互联网用户的增长量有多达70%的来自中国。但是，在电子商务的发展方面，中国和发达国家仍然存在差距。随着互联网的不断普及和互联网技术的不断发展，电子商务的发展才仅仅做了一个印象深刻的开始。阻碍中国电子商务发展的原因可归结为很多问题和障碍。有些问题比如支付方式、配送问题和安全问题已经稍微缓解，不幸的是消费者对网络零售商信任的缺失已经被当作未来长时间内需要克服的最大障碍。
In the paper, we will identify the challenges in developing Chinese E-Commerce and propose a model to cooperate with current E-Commerce system as a mean of enhancing trustworthiness. The paper is organized into 6 sections. Section 2 introduces the current standing of E-Commerce, and then Section 3 briefly reviews the challenges in developing E-Commerce,and examines the "Trust problem",which is identified as the major obstacle that hinders the spreading of E-Commerce in China. In Section 4,we propose a computational model that can be used to address the trust problem.Section 5 specifically discusses how to apply the model to improve trustworthiness, and gives a case study in Section 6.Section7 concludes the paper by discussing further directions for improving trust between E-Commerce users.
译：在本文中，我们将会分析中国发展电子商务面临的挑战，并且建立一种与当前电子商务系统兼容的模式，作为巩固诚信度的一种方式。本篇论文分为6 节，第2节介绍了当前电子商务的现状，第3 节简要的回顾了发展电子商务面临的挑战，并且检查作为阻碍中国当前发展电子商务最大障碍的“诚信问题”。在第4 节中，我们提出了一种可以处理诚信问题的计算模型。第5 节讨论了如何应用这一模型提升诚信度，并且在第6 节中给出了一个案例。第7 节通过讨论在各电子商务用户之间巩固信任度的未来方向总结了该篇论文。
2 Current Chinese E-Commerce Standing  译：中国电子商务现状
2.1 Issues in E-Commerce  译：电子商务问题
Trust has always been the main concern among most of Chinses E-Commerce companies. On one hand,people are impressed by doing business on-line,but on the other hand they are still worried about using E-Commerce widely.Consequently, a gap appeared betwwen on-line retailers'interst in attracting shoppers to their electronic storefronts and many consumers'trust in those activities.Neverthless, researches have shown that the trust problem is not only technical problem, but more of a social problem caused by various reasones.First and foremost,for historical reasons,people may lack of confidence with others,therefore it's quite difficult to put trust in someone else in the beginning.Secondly,the commercial law and regulation for E-Commerce cannot fully protect the interests of consumers and merchants.Therefore E-Commerce users lack the confidence to take the risk when communication with an unfamiliar party. Thirdly, the socail credit sysytem and payment sysytem in China are still not strong enough when carrying complex E-Commerce transactions,so that on-line business frauds may happen,and harm consumers.Last but not least, Internet security and cryptography techniques,which can increase consumers' confidence in on-line activity,are still unser developement.Due to all these issues, E-Commerce specialists commonly regard that the bottleneck of Chinese E-Commerce is as a trust problem than anything else.
译：信作一直是中国大部分电子商务公司最关心的问题。一方面，人们对在网络上开展商务印象深刻，但另一方面他们仍然担心广泛地使用电子商务这一方式。因此，在网络零售商通过吸引顾客来他们网络商店购物的利益和顾客对他们这些活动的信任之间出现了鸿沟。尽管如此，研究者发现信任问题不仅仅是技术问题，更多地是由各种原因引起的社会问题。首先是历史原因，人们对其它人缺乏信心，因此一开始要建立对他人的信任是很难的。第二，商业法律和规章不能完全保护顾客的商人的权益。因此当电子商务用户与不熟悉方进行交流时，缺乏信心去承担风险。第三，中国的信任体系和支付系统还不够强大，不能处理复杂的电子商务交易，因此在线欺诈行为可能发生并且损害消费者的利益。最后，能够增加消费者信心的网络安全和加密技术还处于发展之中。由于上述问题，电子商务专家们普遍认为，制约中国电子商务发展的瓶颈正是信任问题。
2.2 Opportunities of Chinese E-Commerce  译：中国电子商务的发展机遇
In 2005,Chinses E-Commerce has been experiencing the upsurgr of B2C markets. With the recognition of trust problem,many retailers are experimenting with various trust building strategies to establish trustworthiness towards E-Retailers. Establishing trust between E-Commerce users is a long term process.Apart from more education or training in the long term,we can resort to technology to enhance consumer trust in an unfamiliar E-retailer. One effective method is to participate in third-party assurance programs,which assist consumers in an accessible level of trust they should place in an E-Commerce transaction.In that way, merchants who agree to meet a third party assurers standards can either use the assurer-certified technology,or agree to be found in some way by the assurers procadures or oversight are registered by the assruer and permitted to display an identifying logo or assurance seal on their website.Consumers can reveal specific validation of the merchants good-standing with the assurer or additional disclosures related to the merchants' business practices or history.Some theories suggest that trust in an E- retailer can be specifically defined as consumers'willingness to accept vulnerability in an on-line transaction based on their positive expectations regarding an E- Retailers future behavior.By evaluating a party's post behavior and tracking its activities, the party's future behavior can be expected and trust level can be considered so that consumers can make purchasing decision according to the trust level of E-Retailer.In this paper, a third party assurance program that can be cooperated with the current E-Commerce sysytem is proposed.Through tracking E-Retailer's activity records,collecting consumer experiences,and recommendations,the computation model is capable of considering the level that consumer can trust an unfamiliar E-Retailer.More detail about the model is described in Section 4.
译：2005 年，中国电子商务经历了B2C 市场的发展高潮。随着信任问题被逐渐接受，许多零售商正在尝试各种信托建设的战略，建立对电子零售商的可信性。在电子商务用户之间建立信任体系是一项长期的过程。从长远看，除了加强教育和培训外，我们可以借助技术手段去加强消费者对不熟悉电子零售商的信任。一种有效的方法是使第三方担保机构参与进来，协助他们在电子商务交易过程中获得触手可及的信任感。这样，只要同意满足第三方担保人提供的标准，商家就既可以使用担保人的认证技术，也可以和担保人的认证程序进行绑定，在担保人处获得注册并且允许在他们的网站上展示认证标志和担保印章。消费者可以披露在担保人处验证良好的商家以及与该商家有关的商业活动和历史行为。一些专家提出，对一个网络零售商的信任是具体体现在消费者自愿接受一项基于对电子零售商未来行为有良好期望的在线交易之上。通过评估一方过去的行为以及跟踪其行为，该方的未来行为可以被预测并建立起对其的信任水平，这样，消费者可以通过对网络零售商的信任水平决定是否进行购买。本文中，可与目前电子商务系统合作的第三方担保机构被派上用场。通过跟踪网络零售商的活动记录，收集消费者的经历和评论，该计算模型能够评估消费者建立对不熟悉网络零售商的信任水平。更多细节在第四节将被描述。
3 Chanllenges in Developing Chinese E-Commerce  中国发展电子商务的挑战
Chinese E-Markets is undeniably of great potential.E-Markets are not only beneficail for national economy,but also for the global economy,especially since China has enterd the World Trade Organization(WTO).However,in terms of developing E-Commerce,there is a gap between China and other developed countries.The primary cause is that the advent of information age has a great impact on the economy of industrialized countries,while the socail environment and China hasn't become used to its coming.These can be noticed from various aspects including information infrastructure,barriers of social environment,degree of technology innovation,level of awareness,and trustworthiness and so on.Technically,the improvement is obvious,but it's difficult to catch up in short term for some social problems.
译：中国的电子商务市场无可否认具有巨大潜力。电子商务市场不仅有利于国家经济，也有利于全球经济，尤其是自从中国加入世界贸易组织以来。但是，在电子商务的发展方面，中国与其它发达国家之间存在着很大的差距。原因主要是当信息时代的来临对工业化国家的经济产生巨大影响的时候，当时的社会环境却使中国没有习惯它的降临。这可以从很多方面反映出来，包括信息基础设施、社会环境的障碍、科技创新水平、意识水平和信任度等等。技术上，改善显而易见，但是短期内很难在社会问题方面赶上其它发达国家。
3.1 Informationization Gap   信息化差距
Current social environment in China is yet to match the rapid informationization.The understanding of the relation and interaction between industrialization and informationization is inaduquate. In addition,the importance and urgency of informationization in social and economic development haven't been fully aprrecizted.Apart from that,for a long term progress,the awareness and acceptance to informationization are still underway both theoretically and practically.
译：目前的中国的社会环境仍有待于改善以适应信息化的高速发展。对工业化的信息化的关系和互动认识还不够。除此之外，信息化在社会和经济发展中的重要和紧急性没有被充分意识到。而且，信息化意识和接受度在理论和实践上还处于发展当中。
Furthermore,the global information infrastructure are building up,China is not a exception.However,the popularity of informational and electronic facilities in China is still behind the USA,even though 70% of the growth in Internet users occurred in China.That is mainly due to the huge population of China and the imbalanced development of different regions.
译：此外，全球信息系统正在建立，中国也不例外。但是，中国信息化和电子设施的普及仍落后于美国，甚至即使有70%的互联网用户增长率发生在中国，这也仅仅归根于中国庞大的人口基数和不同地区之间的不平衡发展。
In terms of the innovation of information technology,China is catching up to the developed countries progressively,although the exploring and utiliazation of information resources and services are not yet adequate.
译：说到信息技术的创新，中国正在积极赶超发达国家，虽然探索和利用信息资源和服务还不足够。
3.2 Social Barriers in E-Commerce    译：发展电子商务的社会壁垒
In China,E-Commerce activities are impeded by some social barriers as well.For instance,the law and regulation are not flawless.E-Commerce gives a full impetus to social and economic development;in the meantime,it raises some new problems.So we need to address the inadequacy of traditional policy and laws in the new circumstance,and recommend new and effective law and regulation sysytem.E-Commerce may cause multi-facet problems,such as legitimacy and authentication of E-Commerce,E-Commerce,and E-bill.Taxation is another problem.It includes how to collect business tax and custom;whether nre tax and collecting methods are needed for some intangible product(e.g. software,electrical audio and video);how to secure market and prevent monopoly,especially telecommunication monopoly;how to protect privacy and Intellectual Property(IP);how to manage and control export and import of intangible products,and so on.
译：在中国，电子商务活动同样被一些社会问题阻碍。例如，法律和规章并不完善。电子商务给社会和经济发展带来充足的动力；同时，它也产生一些新的问题。所以，我们需要关于处理在新的环境下传统政策和法律的不足之处，并且建立新的更有效的法律和规章体系。电子商务可能引起多层次的问题，例如电子商务的合法性、电子合同、电子倾向。税收是另一个问题，它包括如何收取营业税和海关税；是否需要对一些无形的产品（如软件、电子音频和视频等）建立新的营业税和收取方式；如何保证市场安全和标上垄断，尤其是电信垄断；如何保护隐私和版权；如何管理和控制无形商品的出口和进口，等等。
There is a lack of E-Commerce standard.Standardization and legislation is a difficult but important task in developing E-Commerce.For instance,before the E- Signature Standard was invented in China,there was no particular standard to normalize the behaviors on Internet, therfore,it could not setup a standard business environment compatible with international standards,which has a huge impact on integration of individual country and global economy.
译：电子商务缺乏标准。制定标准和法规对发展电子商务而言是一个艰难但是重要的任务。例如，中国在电子签名标准实施前，没有一个专门的标准来规范网络行为，因此，不能建立一种标准的与国际标准兼容的商业环境，这种商业环境对经济全球化具有重大的影响。
Another problem associated with E-Commerce is the social credit system and payment sysytem.The present E-Commerce can only be regarded as quasi-E- Commerce.Since the credit system lacks of trust,effective monitoring and payment mechanism.The Internet commodity transaction centers only fulfilled parts of E- Commerce processes,but by no mean to be full processes from pre-purchase to post-purchase.
译：另外一个与电子商务相关的问题与社会信用体系和支付体系有关。目前的电子商务只能被视为准电子商务，因为信用体系缺乏信任、有效的监控和支付机制。因特网商务交易中心目前只能处理一部分电子商务过程，而决不能处理从电子商务从开始到完成之后的整个过程。
The current distribution sysytem for Chinses E-Commerce is still not satisfied enough.For instance,the delivery of products has yet to be separated from manufacturing and commercial enterprises.The incomplete distribution processing links such as warehousing,transporting and loading functions as independent entities so that the distribution problem has not been solved well at present.
译：目前中国的电子商务配送系统仍然不能充分满足需求。例如，商品的分发仍然与制造部门和销售部门脱节。不完善的配送系统仍然对产品和销售部门产生消极影响，由于对仓储，运输和装载等功能作为独立的实体有着不同的关联，因此配送问题目前并没有很好的解决。
In summary,these informationization gaps and social barriers indeed hinder the development of Chinese E-Commerce,but many people consider lack of consumers trust in E-Commerce environment as the most concerned issues that affect the development in an individual country,since most traditional cues for assessing trust in physical world are not available on-line.
3.3 Trust Issue  译：信任问题
Trust is a catalyst for human cooperation,and it has received considerable attention in the business and social science literature.Lack of trust can result in a waste of time and resources on protecting ourselves against possible harm and thereby clogs up the economy.Consumer's trust in an E-Retailer can be defined as consumers'willingness to accept vulnerability in an on-line transaction based on their positive expectations in regard with E-Retailers future behavior.Foctors that affect that trust in E-Commerce for consumers include security risks,private risks,and lack of reliability in E-Commerce processes in general.As pointed by Nielsen,real trust builds through a company's actual behavior towards its customers over time,and it is seen to be difficult to build and easy to lose.Theoratically,there are three trust-building process summarized in:
译：信任是人们合作的催化剂，在商业和社会科学文献中已经被人们广泛注意。缺乏信用会导致由保护自己不受可能的伤害而产生的时间和资源的浪费。消费者对一个网络零售商的信任是具体体现在消费者自愿接受一项基于对电子零售商未来行为有良好期望的在线交易之上。在一般的电子商务过程中，影响消费者对电子商务过程信任的因素包括安全风险、隐私风险以及可靠性的缺乏。正如尼尔森指出，真正的信任是通过公司长期对顾客的实际行动逐渐建立起来的，并且建立起来很难，失去却很容易。理论上说，总结起来有三条建立信任的过程：
1. Knowledge-based trust is described as a form of trust that devolops over time as one party learns about intensions,capabilitys,and activity experiences.Example can be recommendation,evalustions,and reputation.
译：1. 基于知识的信任是一种随着时间推移的信任，在这个过程中，其中一方不断学习有关的意图、能力和活动经验。这种例子有建议、评估和声誉等。
2. Institutional-based trust relied on the creation of a "trust infrastructure",of socially recognized third-party intermediaries that certify the trustworthiness of paties in a commercial exchange or actually enforce trustworthy behaviors on the part of one or both partners.Such example is certificate,membership of association.
译：2. 基于制度的信任依赖于“信任基础设施”的建立，社会认可的第三方中介机构证明双方在商业交换中的可信度，或实际上执行一个或两个合作伙伴的信赖行为的创建。这样的例子如证书、协会会员。
3. Trust transfer happens when one party ascribes trustworthiness to an unfamiliar exchange partner based on that partner's association with a trusted party.
译：3. 信任转换发生在合作伙伴和受信任方发生联系时，其中一方对不熟悉的交易伙伴给予信任。
In the ext section,we will describe a computational model,which can be used to facilitate the trust-building process in E-Commerce,particularly for Chinese E- Commerce market.
译：在文本部分，我们会描述一种计算模型，它可以被用在电子商务建设过程中，尤其对于中国电子商务市场。
4. Computational Model of Trust.  译：一个信用的计算模型
5. The Computational Model in E-Commerce Scenario.  译：信用计算模型在电子商务中的运用
6. Trust Building in E-Commerce System EIComputer  译：构建电子商务作用体系
7. Conclusion and Future Work   译：结论和未来的工作
In this paper,we surveyed the E-Commerce activities currently under going in China.We have closely analyzed the gap between the informationization and Barriers of Chinese E-Commerce systems.Among the topics of facilitating development of a positive,effective and satisfied E-Commerce system,"trust" is major issue,which has not received adequate attention in past decades.We have proposed a consumers and merchants,and illustrate how to apply the model in a Chinese E-Commerce system. From the case study of EI Computer,we briefly talked about the implementation of E-Commerce systems with the consideration of enhancing trust.However,establishing trust must be a complex process,which involves more main objective we need to achieve in future work.
译：在本文中，我们调查了中国目前正在开展的电子商务活动。我们仔细分析了信息化和中国电子商务系统的差距。在建立一个积极、有效和满意的电子商务系统的主题上，信任是一个在过去一些年里没有受到充分重视的主要问题。我们提出了一种信任计算模型，它可以巩固消费者和商家的信任关系，并且论述了如何应用这个模型于中国电子商务系统中。从对EI 计算机的研究安全中，我们简要地谈论了在巩固信任度的考虑上如果实施电子商务系统。当然，建立信任是一个复杂的过程，需要包括更多的信息资源，所以持续的发展的巩固信任度将会是我们在未来工作中需要追求的主要目标。