Back to Nov. 30, 2004 at Kuala Lumpur, the establishment of a global online consumer protection network had moved a major step closer in the GBDe Summit.

Self-regulatory organizations from eight nations in Asia, Europe and the Americas, an Asian coalition of e-commerce organizations, and three pan-European bodies, announced the formation of an organizing committee that will establish a Global Trustmark Alliance (GTA).  The new alliance intends to promote safe electronic commerce within each of the participating jurisdictions, and a trustworthy system for cross border e-commerce.

“This is an important development for the growth of e-commerce,” Steven Cole, GTA’s Executive Director and senior vice president of BBBOnLine,  told the GBDe Summit.  “We all know consumer trust and confidence is crucial to growth, and this is even more important for trade across borders.  International cooperation amongst key regional organizations that all help consumers find trustworthy online businesses promises to fuel interest in cross border e-commerce,” Cole added.

The Asia Trustmark Alliance (ATA), one of the existing trustmark alliances at a regional level, and its members, became part of the GTA pioneering committee. Dr Ho-Ming Huang, Chairman of ATA said that.  “After laying the foundation for a pan-Asian collaborative framework, it is only natural that Asia Trustmark Alliance looks toward closer co-operation at an international level.”  “In this respect, it is in the mutual interest of both trust organizations to work together to achieve our similar objectives, which is promotion of trustworthy e-commerce environment,” Huang added.

The announcement was made at the 2004 summit of the Global Business Dialogue for Electronic Commerce (GBDe).  The GBDe is a CEO-driven organization that has been instrumental in promoting international rules to promote worldwide growth in e-commerce.  It has supported the formation of the GTA since it was first conceived and was instrumental in bringing diverse trustmark organizations together for the first time.  The GTA is an outgrowth of recommendations made by GBDe in past years for close cooperation amongst trustmark programs and for the linking together of dispute settlement mechanisms.

The organizations participating in GTA are:

From the Americas:

• BBBOnLine (United States)
• BBBOnLine (Canada)

From Asia:

• Asia Trustmark Alliance
• Korea Institute for Electronic Commerce (Korea)
• National Trust Council, and its accredited trustmark programs, CommerceNet and Case Trust (Singapore)
• Secure Online Shopping Association (Taiwan)
• Electronic Commerce Promotion Council (Japan)

From Europe:

• Trust UK (United Kingdom)
• E-comtrust (European and Switzerland)
• Eurochambres (European)
• Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing (European)

Many of the participating organizations operate trustmark programs that allow businesses that meet high standards to display a trustmark, or label, on e-commerce web sites.  All of the organizations promote self-regulatory codes of online business practices and effective dispute settlement procedures. 

The GTA Organizing Committee started work to share best practices in the administration of trustmark programs, and to establish cooperative procedures to resolve cross border complaints.  GTA’s longer term goal is to harmonize the various voluntary online business practice codes, and to issue an international GTA trustmark that would be co-branded with the local trustmarks used in each jurisdiction.

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A Trustmark Alliance Kickoff Meeting was conducted at November 8th , 2006 in Taipei, Taiwan hosted by SOSA(Secure Online Shopping Association).
Organizations and Representatives from America, Asia and Europe participated in this meeting for the following major sessions:
Developing A Global Trust Program
Keynote Speech : Wining the Confidence of Consumers
Panel Discussion I : Internet Security & Privacy
Panel Discussion II : Online Alternative Dispute Resolution
After this meeting, the idea of developing an international trustmark platform for all participants was initiated. That’s where this Asia Pacific Trustmark Portal comes from.