This chapter is from “Online Dispute Resolution
Theory and Practice,” Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Ethan Katsh & Daniel Rainey ( Eds.), published, sold and distributed by Eleven International Publishing.
The Hague, Netherlands at: www.elevenpub.com.
As with any complex system, especially one as enormous and complex as a global reputation system, inaccuracies and fraud can arise, and these issues can result in disagreements between users.
Timely resolution of these disagreements is essential to the continued health and success of any reputation system. If disagreements go unaddressed and inaccuracies are not fairly addressed, they steadily and inevitably undermine trustin the overall reputation system, which can push the system toward irrelevance and abandonment.
This chapter examines the growth of reputation systems and the resolution mechanisms that have evolved to support them. We discuss the legal context reputation systems operate within, and how it differs between North America and Europe. We then examine two reputation systems in depth, one new and one old: a cutting-edge reputation system called SiteJabber, which collects feedback on websites around the globe; and eBay’s feedback system, one of the original online reputation systems, which has collected more than four billion reviews over the last ten years. We analyze the resolution systems utilized on these platforms in some detail, and then draw some conclusions as to what works and what doesn’t in providing redress for reputation systems. We conclude with our projections as to how these systems will need to evolve in the coming years.
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