Trust and cooperation without governmental supervision: The influence feedback text polarity has on item sales in an illegal online marketplace.
Summary
From the marketplaces of ancient Rome until the modern day era of online shopping reputation systems have always been crucial in promoting trade and creating trust. Newly created anonymous and illegal online marketplaces have given rise to a new dimension of these reputation systems. Costumers have to put their trust in an anonymous seller without any governmental supervision or functioning system of law. One of the most used illegal online market places named SilkRoad will be subject of this research. With a newly coded dataset the effect of written feedback texts can be researched for the first time on this platform. By looking at written reviews on SilkRoad and specifically the effect these reviews have on sales more information about the functioning of reputation systems in illegal online market places will be obtained.