Choosing my partners based on how they will evaluate my behavior

Abstract

In nowadays reputation systems, future partners are selected based solely on their reputation values calculated according to their behavior in providing services. However, an agent that intends to participate in future interactions may concern not only about the quality of the services it provides, but also about how its partners evaluate its behavior since such evaluation may be transmitted to other agents that will use it to select their partners. In this context, this paper proposes two mechanisms able (i) to help an agent to identify how a colleague evaluates the behavior of its partners and (ii) to estimate the reputation the agent using the approach will probably receive after interacting with such colleague. The agent then puts together the reputation value associated with the quality of the services provided by the colleague and the reputation it will receive if interacts with such colleague in order to evaluate if such colleague may be selected or not as a future partner. The approach was evaluated by using an e-commerce scenario.