One of the major problems in the development of virtual societies, in particular in electronic commerce and computer-mediated interactions in organizations, is trust and deception. This book provides analyses by various researchers of the different types of trust that are needed for various tasks, such as facilitating on-line collaboration, building virtual communities and network organizations, and even the design of effective and user-friendly human-computer interfaces. The book has a multi-disciplinary character providing theoretical models of trust and deception, empirical studies, and practical solutions for creating trust in electronic commerce and multi-agent systems.

This book is the result of the workshop “Deception, Fraud, and Trust in Agent Societies”, held in Barcelona on June 4, 2000 as part of the Autonomous Agents 2000 Conference, and organized by Rino Falcone, Munindar Singh, and Yao-Hua Tan. The aim of the workshop was to bring together researchers from di?- ent ?elds (Arti?cial Intelligence, Multi-Agent Systems, Cognitive Science, Game Theory, and Social and Organizational Sciences) that could contribute to a b- ter understanding of trust and deception in agent societies. The workshop scope included theoretical results as well as their applications in human-computer - teraction and electronic commerce. This book includes the revised and extended versions of the works presented at the workshop, incorporating many points that emerged in our discussions, as well as invited papers from experts in the ?eld, which in our view allows a complete coverage of all relevant issues. We gratefully acknowledge the ?nancial support from the Italian National Research Council - Institute for Cognitive S- ence and Technology and the ALFEBIITE European Project, contract number IST-1999-10298. We would like to express our gratitude to Cristiano Castelfranchi for his stimulating and valuable comments and suggestions both for the organization of the workshop and for the preparation of this book.

This book offers a widely interdisciplinary approach to investigating important questions surrounding the cognitive foundations of group attitudes and social interaction. The volume tackles issues such as the relationship between individual and group attitudes, the cognitive bases of group identity and group identification and the link between emotions and individual attitudes. This volume delves into the links between individual attitudes (such as beliefs, goals and intentions) and how they are reflected in shared attitudes where common belief, collective acceptance, joint intentions, and group preferences come into play. It pursues answers to the connections between trust and beliefs, goals and intentions and attempts to investigate questions such as: does trust have an affective component and how it may relate to hope and fear? The volume also scrutinizes game theory and questions whether it can satisfactorily explain and model social interaction and if there may be any concepts which are not addressed by the current theory. Contributors are derived from disciplines including philosophy, economics, psychology, logic and computer science. Interdisciplinary in scope and comprehensive detail, this volume integrates a variety of approaches – philosophical, psychological and artificial intelligence – to strategic, normative and emotional aspects of social interaction.

"This encyclopedia of virtual communities and technologies provides a much needed integrated overview of all the critical concepts, technologies and issues in the area of virtual communities"--Provided by publisher.

Comprehensive coverage of critical issues related to information science and technology.

Based on two international workshops on trust in agent societies, held at AAMAS 2003 and AAMAS 2004, this book draws together carefully revised papers on trust, reputation, and security in agent society. Besides workshop papers, several contributions from leading researchers in this interdisciplinary field were solicited to complete coverage of all relevant topics. The 13 papers presented take into account issues from multiagent systems, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, game theory, and social and organizational science. Theoretical topics are addressed as well as applications in human-computer interaction and e-commerce.

Data collection allows today’s businesses to cater to each customer’s individual needs and provides a necessary edge in a competitive market. However, any breach in confidentiality can cause serious consequences for both the consumer and the company. The Handbook of Research on Emerging Developments in Data Privacy brings together new ideas on how to deal with potential leaks of valuable customer information. Highlighting the legal aspects of identity protection, trust and security, and detection techniques, this comprehensive work is a valuable resource for any business, legal, or technology professional looking to improve information security within their organization.