This section has three focal areas: policy, provenance and reputation.

 

Policy

Facebook has privacy policies that we can trust, therefore we trust them explicitly without needing external stimuli. The policies link to decades of building up the foundations of personal data privacy policies and so we assume that facebook adheres to these, plus they have to adhere to various external laws which we can trust. Our friends are on facebook so we therefore trust their judgement enough to follow suit.

 

Provenance

The provenance of a piece of data is its point of origin and its path to creation. If a user were to go to TripAdvisor and look up a restaurant only to find a negative review, then they might get a bad impression. However, if they were to investigate further, they may find that the bad review was related to a second disgruntled diner or something else equally external to the restaurant’s function. Similarly, if a positive review was written by an employee or paid member of the restaurant then it will skew the impression. Therefore, even if the review is positive or negative, the provenance of the data needs first to be addressed.

 

Reputation

Problems with reputation-based trust: one friend might have a really bad experience with facebook, whilst one friend might have an excellent experience, therefore my personal understanding will be a 50% level before I even see the website, tainting my opinion. Also, several people may review the app/restaurant/nightclub, but they themselves have different trust levels, so if I trust someone 100% and they rate it 4, I am more likely to also rate it 4 even if others, who I trust 10%, rate it higher. Similarly, if A rates it a 4, and B trusts A 100%, and I trust B 100%, I will rate it a 4, or at least think of the service as sub-par.

 

Application to Scene

Many online transaction-based companies rely on credit or debit card technology to function, therefore if that goes down then so does the service. Hacking is also an issue, such as when Tesco’s credit card database got hacked its reputation dropped. Therefore PayPal is a good company to use.

 

We have to cater to first-time users and make sure their experience is top notch, otherwise the previously discussed network effect alongside trust could work against us. We must also use secure and trusted third party transaction companies like PayPal as users unfamiliar with our app will more likely trust it if we route all our business through a well known, trusted company.

 

With our scoring system we create trust in our reviews. For example, if a level 1 foodie writes a bad review of a restaurant, their opinion could largely be ignored by the user if a level 10 foodie has written a good one, and vice versa.