Bruce Fulton, doctoral student in the School of Information Resources and Library Science, opens the 2009 SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture Series with a presentation on "Gaming the System: Manipulation of Consumer Reviews: An Analysis and Case Study." Online consumer reviews, pioneered in the late 1990s by merchants such as Amazon.com, have become an important tool for both buyers and sellers. Many shoppers place more confidence in online reviews than other more traditional forms of product evaluation. Most online reviews exist within the context of a reputation system in which credibility of individual reviews and reviewers depends on past performance and consumer feedback on helpfulness. Reputation systems can be manipulated and are susceptible to various kinds of deception. Further, there is evidence from multiple sources that reputation system hosts manipulate their own systems for purposes that are not always transparent to their customers.

In this presentation, Fulton will summarize some of the consumer and research literature exploring review system manipulation and explore how systems can be manipulated. Fulton examines one particular case of review system manipulation quantitatively to demonstrate how manipulation might be detected using statistical methods and the extent to which an attempt at review system manipulation can be successful.