V juniju je organizacija Zveza potrošnikov Slovenije gostila First International Workshop and Roundtable on Web Credibility: Building Trust on The Web, ki ga je organizirala mednarodna organizacija za varstvo potrošnikov Consumers International ter ameriška organizacija WebWatch. 

Projekt RIS je v tem okviru predstavil študijo "Confidentiality Concern and On-line shopping."

ABSTRACT: The paper overviews the relationships between concern for security and on-line shopping. The issues of confidentiality, privacy and credibility are also briefly discussed.

Despite some recent turbulences, the on-line shopping is steadily growing, surpassing 1% of retail sales in some most developed countries. Of course, the indirect effect of on-line shopping information on off-line retail is much larger.

The data from SIBIS project for 25 European countries and US are presented with special attention to the relation between e-shopping, security, privacy and Internet developments. The relation between the Internet developments and on-line shopping seems to be strongly linear. However, the security concern, and - in particular - its impact on on-line shopping, exhibits much more complex relation, which is strongly conditioned on specific (cultural) country characteristics. No simple linear correlation can be observed between this concern and the extent it prevents users from on-line purchase. Similarly, no simple relationship can be found between security concern and the general developments of on-line shopping or Internet usage.

More detailed individual data from Slovenia enabled the modeling of the causal relation between security concern and on-line shopping. It is shown, that at individual level the on-line purchase is basically determined by attitudes towards e-shopping and not so much with security concern and the intensity of Internet usage. There also exist some important differences, if data are used from representative telephone survey, or, from the self-selected survey on the Web.

The specific data on Slovenia are also presented, showing a typical country with modest internet penetration (40% of the population 15+) and relatively slow development of on-line shopping, where the privacy and confidentiality concern did not yet develop to the extent that would present a serious obstacle. However, the consumer attitudes reveal some surprising issues. Thus, for example, the navigation of the on-line shop seems to be the most important characteristic of a good shopping Web site (before security and privacy assurance). Similarly, among the complaints related to the consumer rights, the most exposed one was the problem that the Web site was not enough user-friendly.

The final conclusion would be that security concerns are only one specific barrier against e-commerce, only for a certain segment of the public and particularly in some of the countries. More than privacy and security concerns, e-commerce is influenced by the general attitude to on-line shopping.