The eBay vendor had a glowing record — 900 successful sales, with only a single complaint amid a long series of positive testimonials from customers. So when a Georgia bidder won the seller’s auction for an Olympus digital camera in January, there seemed little reason to worry about dispatching almost $700 into cyberspace. But the camera never arrived. “I don’t think I will ever buy anything over the Internet again,” the conned bidder lamented. “I am not a wealthy person, had saved long and hard for this camera for my business, and don’t know when, or if ever I will see my $700 again.” Ever since the early days of the Internet, Web sites have struggled to find ways of reassuring users that a stranger could be as honest as a well-known local merchant, as knowledgeable as a respected teacher or as insightful as a wise grandparent. With Internet commerce now estimated to exceed $100 billion a year and greater numbers of people turning to the Internet for products, advice and love, Web sites are crafting more elaborate rating and feedback systems — reputation monitors of sort — to help people evaluate whom they can trust. But the cheats have also noticed the unprecedented chance for ill-gotten gains. This has set off a high-stakes game of cat and mouse as Web sites spend more time and money to secure their systems against those trying to game them. Said University of Maryland professor of information systems Chrysanthos Dellarocas, “We need some reputation mechanism.” One of the best-known reputation systems is the one used by Amazon.com, which provides user-written reviews of the books it sells and allows other users to rate the reviewers. One of Yahoo’s fast-growing features, Yahoo Answers, boasts 75 million users who ask and answer each other’s online questions on nearly any subject, with greater weight to those who earn expert ratings from other users. “Reputation is key to it all,” said Yahoo vice-president of product strategy Bradley Horowitz.-Alan Sipress
