Abstract:

While prior research on electronic commerce has repeatedly shown that security issue is one of the major concerns of Internet users, it is still unclear what Web-sites can do to enhance people’s confidence of Internet security. One possible measure to reduce people’s worries over Internet security is to provide them with security information they want to know. General guidelines about provision of privacy information such as the International Safe Habor Privacy Principles in the United States and the National Privacy Principles (NPP) in Australia are available but there is no clear requirement of the types and extent of security information that Web-sites should provide. This paper reports the analysis results of the security information provided by the four major banks in Australia on their Web-sites. It is the first part of a research project which examines the expectation gap between Internet users and organizations regarding security information provided by Web-sites. The ultimate objective of this research is to investigate how provision of security information can enhance people’s confidence in conducting electronic transactions over the Internet.