Anonymity and self-expression in online rating systems—An experimental analysis

Customer reviews are a fundamental part of online markets to establish trust between customers and sellers. Sharing experiences about products services, however, might be accompanied with concerns for private information being shared the threat involuntarily analyzed clustered by third parties. Anonymous reputation systems ensure more privacy preventing tracked means their reviews. However, this enhancement also crowd out reviews, that motivated self-expression motives reviewers as these can blunted introduction anonymity. In experimental study we therefore analyze whether anonymous indeed have drawback blunting motive customer altruistic attitudes moderate effect. We find amount ratings drops significantly when subjects pointing driver Moreover, not affected anonymity and, hence, provide compared non-altruists under When remove veil implementing pseudonyms, difference altruists disappears overall, consumer welfare increases.