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Robustness against fraudulent activities of a blockchain-based online review system

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Abstract

Fake reviews are a major problem in online consumer feedback systems that not only mislead people due to incorrect information but also damage the overall credibility of online businesses. Popular online review platforms have tried to overcome this problem through various strategies. However, most attempts end with vulnerabilities and untraceable results. We demonstrate how centralized online review systems are vulnerable to attacks. The blockchain-based online review system, which incorporates a token curated registry (TCR), is proposed in this work. Mathematical models are defined to analyze the capability to handle problems of centralized systems and the proposed framework. Additionally, we construct scenarios to demonstrate empirical results on fake review spam prevention. Our framework can discourage fraudsters by requiring costs and exposing their actions. Moreover, the system relies on the majority of users rather than a central authority. Furthermore, the proposed framework provides flexible and reasonable operation, and the community-driven environment provides more credible information, which is driven by customers’ decisions.

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Notes

  1. Ananya Bhattacharya 2017, Trust no one: Reviews and ratings mean little to India’s online shoppers, Quartz India, viewed 18 December 2020, https://qz.com/india/1136043/misinformation-and-fake-reviews-are-flooding-indian-e-commerce

  2. David Streitfeld 2013, Give Yourself 5 Stars? Online, It Might Cost You, The New York Times, viewed 18 December 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/technology/give-yourself-4-stars-online-it-might-cost-you.html

  3. Chanissara is gathering evidence to catch netizens who declined review scores of the Sri Panwa hotel 2020, Post today, viewed 18 December 2020, https://www.posttoday.com/economy/news/633773

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge support from the College of Computing, Prince of Songkla University, under the BLOCK research team.

Funding

This research was supported by the Thailand Research Fundamental Fund, grant number COC6405046S.

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  1. College of Computing, Prince of Songkla University, Phuket, Thailand

    Tanakorn Karode & Warodom Werapun

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  1. Tanakorn Karode
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Correspondence to Warodom Werapun.

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Karode, T., Werapun, W. Robustness against fraudulent activities of a blockchain-based online review system. Peer-to-Peer Netw. Appl. 15, 92–106 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12083-021-01225-z

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