Chapter 1 Agreement Technologies: A Computing Perspective Sascha Ossowski, Carles Sierra, and Vicente Botti 1.1 Introduction In the past, the concept of agreement was a domain of study mainly for philosophers and sociologists, and was only applicable to human societies. However, in recent years, the growth of disciplines such as social psychology, socio-biology, social neuroscience, together with the spectacular emergence of the information society technologies, have changed this situation. Presently, agreement and all the processes and mechanisms involved in reaching agreements between different kinds of agents are also a subject of research and analysis from technology-oriented perspectives. In Computer Science, the recent trend towards large-scale open distributed software systems has triggered interest in computational approaches for modelling and enacting agreement and agreement processes. Today, most transactions and interactions at business level, but also at leisure level, are mediated by computers and computer networks. From email, over social networks, to virtual worlds, the way people work and enjoy their free time has changed dramatically in less than a generation. This change has meant that IT research and development focuses on aspects like new Human-Computer Interfaces or enhanced routing and network S. Ossowski () CETINIA, University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain e-mail: sascha.ossowski@urjc.es C. Sierra IIIA – CSIC, Barcelona, Spain e-mail: sierra@iiia.csic.es V. Botti Departamento de Sistemas Informáticos y Computación, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain e-mail: vbotti@dsic.upv.es S. Ossowski (ed.), Agreement Technologies, Law, Governance and Technology Series 8, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5583-3__1, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 3