Tillit inom illegal e-handel. En fallstudie av marknadsplatsen Silk Road
Since the beginning of the internet the criminal world has used the medium as a platform for operation.This dark web is a domain where illegal sites are flourishing due to the possibilities offered by newtechnology. Net-based criminal activity is a challenge for society as it uses hard proof technologicalsafety measures to avoid the law. Silk Road is the most prominent example, an online illicitmarketplace where drugs and illegal substances are being traded based on conventional e-commerceconcepts. This paper argues for trust as an important factor for the survival of illicit online trade andapplies existing theories on e-commerce and virtual communities. To identify patterns of trust andcommon trust-based issues among Silk Road users, a netnographic study was conducted on the site?sdiscussion forum. This explorative examination focuses on recurring topics and presents its findingsthrough trust-specific themes. The study describes solidarity, integrity, intermediaries, payment andtransport as important trust dependent situations and concludes that high control and low uncertaintyare the common denominators. Previous studies on online illicit trade focuses mainly on the technicalaspects, more user-centered research of this type is therefore needed.This paper is written in Swedish.Keywords: Trust, virtual communities, e-commerce, dark web, Silk Road