The Routledge Companion to Trust

22Individual Trust and the Internet

Lisa van der Werff, Colette Real and Theodore G. Lynn

Introduction

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies and associated services heralded a second generation of the internet emphasizing collaboration and sharing among users. This resulted in a seismic shift in the relationship between individual consumers and firms but also between individual consumers and the internet as a system. Consumers, not firms, became an emerging locus of value production and through the ability to publish and connect with known and unknown others, an emerging locus of power (Berthon, Pitt, Plangger, & Shapiro, 2012). Powered by broad band telecommunications and device connectivity, the intensity of these changes was further deepened ...