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What Airbnb's Blockchain Authentication Proposal Means For Online Privacy (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Nathan Blecharcyzk, one of the co-founders at home rental platform Airbnb, has detailed the company's interest in blockchain technologies to help establish user reputation and trust. He revealed that in 2016 Airbnb would be looking into blockchain integration, or a similar distributed ledger system, to authenticate a user's reputation and establish trust on the platform. The proposal marks a potentially revolutionary step for e-commerce sites and peer opinion platforms looking to identify and filter out damaging reviews planted by competitors and trolls, or self-promoting posts which can mislead consumers. However, while protecting the integrity of some, the introduction of a blockchain-based reputation system holds a potential threat to anonymity and privacy online. A distributed and irreversible system for trust management, which stores personal data, could offer a hotbed for doxing and identity theft – and even undermine an individual's right to be forgotten.
This is all overkill. They just need to ONLY allow reviews for properties from customers that have actually PAID to stay at that property. Each reviewer would have an indicator of how many nights they have paid for and how many reviews they have made. Simple, effective, and understandable.