The aim of this paper is to better qualify the problem of online trust. The problem of online trust is that of evaluating whether online environments have the proper design to enable trust. This paper tries to better qualify this problem by showing that there is no unique answer, but only conditional considerations that depend on the conception of trust assumed and the features that are included in the environments themselves. In fact, the major issue concerning traditional debates surrounding online trust is that those debates focus on specific definitions of trust and specific online environments. Ordinarily, a definition of trust is assumed and then environmental conditions necessary for trust are evaluated with respect to such specific definition. However, this modus operandi fails to appreciate that trust is a rich concept, with a multitude of meanings and that there is still no strict consensus on which meaning shall be taken as the proper one. Moreover, the fact that online environments are constantly evolving and that new design features might be implemented in them is completely ignored. In this paper, the richness of the philosophical discussions about trust is brought into the analysis of online trust. I first provide a set of conditions that depend on the definition of trust that can be assumed and then discuss those conditions with respect to the design of online environments in order to determine whether they can enable (and under which circumstances) trust.

本文的目的是更好地界定在线信任问题。在线信任的问题是评估在线环境是否具有适当的设计来实现信任。本文试图通过表明没有唯一的答案来更好地限定这个问题，而只有依赖于假设的信任概念和环境本身包含的特征的条件考虑。事实上，围绕在线信任的传统辩论的主要问题是，这些辩论侧重于信任的特定定义和特定的在线环境。通常，假设信任的定义，然后根据该特定定义评估信任所需的环境条件。然而，这种作案手法没有意识到信任是一个丰富的概念，具有多种含义，对于应以哪种含义为正确含义仍然没有严格的共识。此外，在线环境不断发展以及可能在其中实施新的设计功能这一事实被完全忽略了。在本文中，关于信任的哲学讨论的丰富性被引入到在线信任的分析中。我首先提供一组取决于可以假设的信任定义的条件，然后讨论与在线环境设计相关的这些条件，以确定它们是否可以（以及在何种情况下）实现信任。