Accounting Profession and Web Assurance Service

Abstract

Transactions volume performed through Internet is not attaining expectations. Customers feel worry and fear to expose to fraud and misuse their private information. To overcome this problem, some organizations established to provide trust in E commerce transactions through what is known as Web Assurance service. These organizations provide services resemble what is known in accounting arena as Assurance Services which provided by auditing firms.

American institute of Certified Accountants (AICPA) and Canadian Institute of Charted Accountants (CICA) adopted and implemented a joint project to create a new assurance service in order to provide trust in E commerce transactions. That service known as WebTrust. Thus, accountants entered a new environment of hard competition to increase their revenues and compensate slow growth of their traditional services like financial statements audits. Unfortunately, WebTrust is not growing as expected. Competitors prevailed and their brands became more popular in E commerce filed. So, many accounting studies are devoted to evaluate WebTrust and explore possibilities of improvements. This study aimed to illustrate the need of trust and nature of web assurance seals and to discuss Web assurance research.

Keywords: Web Assurance service, assurance seals, webtrust

JEL Classification: M49