Assessing Trust by Disclosure in Online Social Networks

Knowing about trust between members of an online social network (OSN) is essential for many applications. In this paper we propose and discuss methods for deriving information about trust within a social network by analyzing disclosure of personal information items. A formal model of trust and disclosure is presented and possible trust functions were analysed. We distinguish different types of information and assess their privacy value. A methodology for calculating privacy values and trust functions is provided.