This study, carried out by empirica together with DIW (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung), will

contribute to proper understanding of the concepts of trust and confidence, the role consumer trust and confidence plays in practice in today’s Information Society and how this role relates to consumer protection and to promoting eInclusion

explore in detail the main causes and consequences of problems relating to trust and confidence encountered by consumers, and to highlight the potential and need for concrete measures to address these

• take stock of policy-making at national level across all 32 EU Member States, Acceding and Candidate Countries, and non-EU EEA countries, establishing how EU legislation is being transposed, how recommendations taken into account and what supplementary legislation and other innovative policy measures have been introduced with what impact
• identify good policy practice at Member State level and regionally, identifying the means by which consumer trust and confidence in the Information Society can effectively and efficiently be fostered
• document case studies, presenting good practice and other examples of heuristic value in a way which fully supports inspection and learning by other parties who could benefit from the experience of innovators
• initiate effective transfer of good practice and related know-how between relevant stakeholder groups and across the borders of individual EU/EEA Member States

produce a set of recommendations, concrete descriptions of measures which can be introduced at EU level, which are well-tailored to the interests of target groups and relevant stakeholders, specifying the appropriate time horizon for realisation (short-term, medium-term, long-term) in a format which optimally supports know-how transfer in terms, for example, of language, layout and overall look-and-feel of documents.

The study will strongly to support the i2010 initiative, by providing detailed analysis of the origins as well as the impact of any lack of consumer trust and confidence in Information Society products and services