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Of course, you have questions. Can it really be this simple? Will it really work? There has to be some problem I haven’t foreseen. Here, we have attempted to answer your questions in advance:
Are you saying I reveal my customers to my competitors? Absolutely not. User’s email addresses are hashed on the service’s side using a one-way hash algorithm (SHA 256) and sent to a ReputationShare server so reputation data is the only information shared with you and others on the network. The ReputationShare service never receives personal information; we only see the irreversible hash value. Your users remain yours. » Back to Top Can Web users view their reputation information? Yes. Any user can visit ReputationShare.net and enter their email address. Their email address is hashed using the same algorithm the services employ to identify their unique file. A one-time key is then sent to the email address provided to allow the user to open and view their record. Once the one-time key has been sent to the email address, ReputationShare discards the email information; it is never stored. Users are able to see their score, their incident reports, the incident report number, the dates the reports were submitted, the event types (active and positive user, bulling, profanity, etc), whether the reports were positive or negative, see which service made the report, (though, if the incident is reported by a user on the site they cannot see which user made the report) and the services URL. » Back to Top What if a Web user wants to dispute an incident they saw on their ReputationShare record? ReputationShare provides the user the name and URL of the service that reported the incident as well as the date, type and severity of the incident. The user may choose to contact the reporting service and inquire about the reasoning behind the incident report. All discussion takes place between the service and the user with no involvement from ReputationShare. ReputationShare does not generate incident reports. » Back to Top Can a service decide to change or retract an incident report? Within a period of three months of the incident report date, the service can retract or modify any incident report submitted by their service after providing appropriate identification of the incident report to ReputationShare. » Back to Top What if someone creates a new email address before joining my service? Users want features. They want to be welcomed with open arms when they go places, and they want the premium treatment (determined at the discretion of each provider). They also want to be respected within the community. If they have a good reputation, they do not want to lose it by starting over with a new email address. (See “How to transfer an existing reputation to a new email account” below.) If a user shows up on your site with new or relatively new reputation record, that in and of itself is a useful – and potentially very telling - piece of information. The question quickly becomes, “Why don’t they have a reputation? Are they a young child? A new Internet user? Or was their last reputation so trashed that they figured it was better to start over?” It is your decision as to how you deal with them, what freedom you allow them and how you monitor them on your site. (We would expect you would have your moderators watch their early interactions, more closely than people with great reputations. You may also choose to limit their interactions with others until they have built some credibility.) Users with newly generated email addresses should expect to have to earn their reputation just as people do in everyday life; the qualification process is not punitive, merely normal for a new user with no track record. New users can ask others to vouch for them (for example parents may vouch for a child), but the people who vouch for them must have positive reputations, and they must understand that they risk damage to their own reputation if they vouch for a user who then exhibits negative behavior within a set period of time. » Back to Top What does a ReputationShare score look like, and how is it computed? Reputation scores are comprised of four elements:
When a new record is created, the score is set to 500 on a scale of zero to one thousand. The record identifies the date it was created. Their behavioral counters and last-event-date fields are set to zero. ReputationShare employs proprietary algorithms that take an aggregated approach to score computations. The algorithms apply historical relevance to incidents reported against users, so the older the information, the less powerful the effect it has on the user’s reputation. The score reflects a blend of all of the user’s activities, though services can see what behavioral events led to the score’s value. Only in cases where an incident report is extreme, such as a report of sexual predation, can a single report dramatically damage a person’s reputation. » Back to Top What do I do with people who have exceptional reputations? You decide how you deal with people who come with positive and very positive reputations. Maybe they are major purchasers. Maybe they are respected contributors across numerous sites. Our guess is you want to reward them for coming to your site and encourage them to stay. What incentives you offer – if any – are entirely up to you. » Back to Top What do I do with people who come with bad reputations? That is up to your policies, terms and conditions. The reputation information does not dictate what you should do, but it does give you the information you need to make informed decisions about your users. To be clear, most of your registrations will be straightforward. The majority of users will come with no strikes against them; many will have accolades. In some cases, you will get someone with a very negative reputation (for example within the category of Fraud) who attempts to sign up for your service, and you can tailor your site’s solutions for dealing with such users. » Back to Top What if a user’s reputation is impacted by an abusive service? ReputationShare allows users to report concerns about trustworthiness of incident reports submitted by services. In parallel, ReputationShare uses algorithms to evaluate on an ongoing basis the companies that use our service for accuracy and reliability in incident reporting. When ReputationShare suspects a possible abusive service, the investigation is passed to human moderators for evaluation. If the moderators find that the service is indeed submitting false incident reports, ReputationShare shuts down their access, and retracts incident reports they submitted, thus removing any impact on affected users and their reputation scores. » Back to Top What if a user wants to replace their email address or add an email address to their record? These options are available to users on ReputationShare.net or through a URL redirect function that ReputationShare provides to subscribing services. In order to make changes, users must prove they own both the old address(es) and the new address(es) to enact the change. » Back to Top What legal liability do I have? Are there any Compliance issues? All the content that is included in the ReputationShare service should be considered user generated content. It does not include any personally identifiable information, email addresses or other information that could be used to identify or contact a user. ReputationShare has all necessary rights to provide this information to you. You may use this information in any manner you see fit. This is not unlike the feedback ratings that a buyer or seller would provide to eBay. We at ReputationShare do not impose any policy or specific solutions, but we can provide you with recommendations for addressing bad behavior revealed by our data. In terms of existing legislation, under the Communications Decency Act, ReputationShare has no liability with regard to disparaging or inappropriate content posted by others. Likewise, COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) does not apply, given that ReputationShare does not collect any personal information or email addresses for any user, and specifically not for children under 13. » Back to Top What do I need to do to join? When you subscribe to ReputationShare, you receive an integration packet that contains a certificate, which your service will use for authentication to ReputationShare, and an entity ID. We provide a simple ReputationShare API to communicate with your servers through a SOAP interface. We run integration testing with you and you are ready go live and receive a wealth of information about your users that has never available before. How you use the ReputationShare services is entirely up to you. You decide how often you query the database to request or send information based on the hash value generated by each user’s email address. You decide what information you want to receive from ReputationShare’s menu of options. You also decide what information you want to contribute about the behavior of users on your site. » Back to Top What kind of support do you offer? The ReputationShare service is supported 24x7, 365 days of the year. The service is upgraded on an ongoing basis by our development team. As new features are added to the API, they are released on our server, and you will be alerted to the new features and relevant changes. This service is built to support you, so many features will be based on feedback from our certified members. As the network of ReputationShare Certified companies grows, the data to which you have access grows and becomes richer hour by hour. » Back to Top Is there any established model similar to ReputationShare? Yes. The model is analogous to how insurance companies use driving records to determine car insurance premiums, and to how banks use credit bureaus to set interest rates on credit products. This same philosophy guides ReputationShare. In order to cultivate user accountability, actions must have consequences beyond the local event. By using shared knowledge and a broad range of consequences, Internet service providers can help drive socially responsible behavior. » Back to Top |
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