Digital Identity

Reputation and Trust Communities

I just bought a cell phone cover on eBay from someone in Hong Kong. Normally, I'd consider an international purchase pretty risky. But eBay provides a means for me to gain trust in someone living in Hong Kong. The trust is based on feedback from other eBay users. Each time an eBay seller completes a transaction, the buyer can rate the seller on a number of different points. When I bought my cell phone cover, I was able to review the seller's history on eBay and determine that other buyers were happy with their interactions with this seller. In the same way, sellers can see a buyer's reputation to determine if the buyer is trustworthy and therefore likely to complete the transaction. eBay's feedback system creates a social network wherein reputation can flourish. This social network aggregates the reputations of eBay buyers and sellers into a community of trust.

In that way, eBay is like a village where trustworthiness is based on one's reputation. First-time sellers, like strangers in the village, have no reputation and are thus viewed with suspicion. Over time, this changes for better or worse depending on the actions of the person. On eBay, identities, rather than people, gain a reputation over time, and that reputation can be used to judge a particular buyer or seller.

eBay, of course, is not the only example of a system where this kind of trust community has developed. MSN Messenger, for example, serves as the infrastructure that supports a community ...