A fuzzy classification approach to assess e-commerce security perception

Human perception and judgment of website security is characterised by a high degree of subjectivity, abstraction and vagueness. This makes fuzzy set theory an effective tool to guide towards assessing e-commerce security perception. In this study, we propose a new approach to assess e-commerce security perception, which is based on fuzzy classification techniques. We first present a practical e-commerce security assessment framework which is based on a comprehensive set of security features. Using fuzzy set theory, we provide website users with the flexibility to assign linguistic judgment terms to each security feature, as well as weights to reflect different perceived levels of features’ importance. A case study is conducted to showcase the usefulness of the proposed solution. The framework and approach presented in this study can be useful in assisting e-commerce firms evaluate the current state of customer perception of their websites’ security and identify areas which must be improved.