A research conducted in 2000 found that online users in
that period used website to stay connected with their friends
and families by sharing pictures, video and some text on the
internet [5]. Adolescents also acted similarly, that their
intended primary audiences of their homepages are their
friends in their real life. Arunrangsiwed [18] also found that
online users tend to believe social networking sites better than
all other kinds of website. This is because users on social
networking sites who they met are the actual people they have
already known before getting onto social networking. All
these resources show that there is not much space left for
anonymous users.
One of basic sources of uncertainty on internet is reliability
failures [19]. Many websites try to mimic face-to-face
communication on their website to increate level of trust or
reliability [20]. For example, Fatcow customers might have an
experience chatting with Fatcow staff after clicking “LiveChat”
button
on
Fatcow
homepage.
When
the
questions
are
sent,
and
the
customers
get
the
answers
immediately,
this
is
similar
to
face-to-face
communication.
Another
way that
famous
commercial
websites
always
use
to
reduce
reliability
failure is to make themselves appear on other media. When
the users know the websites on television or other traditional
media, their memory would heighten the level of trust on the
websites, which would help the users feel more comfortable to
make an online transaction [20]. While commercial websites
have an opportunity to make their users know them on other
media, anonymous users do not have this opportunity. They
could only make the new friends know them on online media.
Anonymous users do not only have the lack of opportunity
to build trust online, this online relationship with new friends
also lack facial expression, non-verbal communication and
body language-posture [1]. Although emoticon can fill this
void on online communication [21], online communication
still has less non-verbal language, which is hard for
anonymous users to develop an ongoing long-term
relationship with other users [22].
Initial trust is the trust at primary level which can be
extended to trustworthiness. This initial trust is the most
difficult stage to achieve [20]. Different online activities
require different levels of trust. To make an online payment
might require a higher level of trust than to register for a new
account on an unknown website. In some cases, to accept the
friend request of an anonymous person on social networking
might require a high level of trust. This is because most users
with cyber bully behaviors always present themselves as
anonymous. They add other users to steal the personal
information, and use this information to reach their goal [16].
Some users prevent this situation by filtering everyone before
friend acceptance, this method also helps to reduce other
online conflict such group co-representation [11]. To post
anything online is to share the ownership of information to its
audiences [23]. To filter people who could view the
information would help to control the information flowing to
unintended audiences.
To build trust online, the users or agents need to develop at
least one of these elements, web design or trust-building
behaviors. Web design was a possible option for Myspace
Profile Version 1.0 and 2.0, which allowed users to decorate
profiles with CSS codes [6]. A nice and clean design could
increase the number of Myspace friends to reach more than
10,000 friends. The researcher found that the level of trust to
contact with an anonymous user on social networking sites
was not high enough for an anonymous user to ask for the real
address of other users. Regular online users still have public
and private boundary for anonymous users to access, even
both have accepted each other as friends. Deviantart.com is
another good example to study about online trust and
anonymous users. Deviantart.com is an online art gallery
which users can upload, sell and receive the comments on
their artwork. Popular users on Deviantart.com do not need to
show their real photo or real location. These users become
popular because they could create the artwork matching with
what other users like to see. Akdag Salah [24] found that
anime was one of the famous styles that could receive a lot of
comments on this site.