A Privacy Preserving Reputation Protocol for Web Service Provider Selection

Reputation systems offer web service consumers an effective solution for selecting web service providers who meet their Quality of Service (QoS) expectations. A reputation system computes the reputation of a provider as an aggregate of the feedback submitted by consumers. Truthful feedback is clearly a pre-requisite for accurate reputation scores. However, it has been observed that users of a reputation system often hesitate in providing truthful feedback, mainly due to the fear of reprisal from target entities. We present a privacy preserving reputation protocol that enables web service consumers to provide feedback about web service providers in a private and thus uninhibited manner.