Reputation Inflation by Filippas, Horton, Golden

Reputation Inflation, by Apostolos Filippas, John J. Horton, and Joseph M. Golden

Great paper showing how perceived relative costs to rating systems can loop into system lower effectiveness.  As raters react to incentives to report public rating, bias is introduced and can lead to a rather boolean outcome: anything different from perfect score is serious statement of reproval.

This at first may be seen as a problem.  However, those proposing rating mechanics may in fact use such bias to get a stronger grip on those being rated.

Data Brokers – A Call for Transparency

Cambridge Analytica’s may deservedly be set apart for its practices and the way it collected data.  And 50 MM user’s data sounds like a lot, right?

Now compare to this 2014 report “… one data broker’s database
has information on 1.4 billion consumer transactions and over 700 billion aggregated data elements; another data broker’s database covers one trillion dollars in consumer transactions;
and yet another data broker adds three billion new records each month to its databases. Most importantly, data brokers hold a vast array of information on individual consumers. For example, one of the nine data brokers has 3000 data segments for nearly every U.S. consumer…”

And this was what U.S. Federal Trade Commission found from nine data brokers.  In 2014.  And by the fact that “Seven of the nine data brokers in the Commission’s study provide data to each other. Accordingly, it would be virtually impossible for a consumer to determine how a data broker obtained his or her data…” this is now far out of reach of any action by Facebook or CA themselves.

Not-for-profit Projects Hub

Using Ethereum smart contracts to leverage community service projects

The problem

Working on local projects for community and nonprofit organizations one usually tumbles in an chicken-and-egg situation.  Often enough community support seems at reach and probes show that community members would back the project financially if only it was effectively happening.  Despite governmental incentives is not unusual, the initial setup of an organization present costs.  From registration to basic structure some projects rely on volunteers who can’t financially fund projects themselves.  And raising funds in a start-up nonprofit is particularly tricky since unviable projects not only fail to deliver service but also would not be able to refund early donors.  Moreover, projects that are not yet in production usually don’t have legal determination status, jeopardizing tax benefits to donors.

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