Take a look behind the scenes of science with our experts Rebecca Janßen from ZEW and David Klock from the University of Mannheim!

The digital revolution has not stopped at word-of-mouth advertising. In addition to classic recommendations and independent product tests, rating systems now play a major role in consumers' purchasing decisions on the internet. The virtual exchange of experiences is not only intended to create trust in unknown services and providers. Competition is also to be stimulated by all market participants behaving in such a way that they receive a positive evaluation.

The expectation of many consumers today is therefore that the number of positive ratings should be as high as possible. However, this can also lead to false incentives on the part of providers. In the »gold fever« surrounding the coveted star ratings, the praise of users is bought if necessary. Rebecca Janßen and David Klock discuss when this is a problem and how the applicable law and the platform operators deal with it.

The talk is part of the research project »digilog@bw – Digitalisation in Dialogue« and will be streamed on Instagram Live https://www.instagram.com/zkmkarlsruhe. We cordially invite you to ask questions in the Instagram chat and join the discussion!

The event is held in German.

Our guests at #meetdigilog:

Rebecca Janßen studied business administration and economics at the Leuphana University Lüneburg and the University of Münster. Since October 2018, she has been working as a research assistant in the ZEW research area »Digital Economics« in the team led by Prof. Dr. Irene Bertschek and is primarily concerned with digital platforms. She is also doing her doctorate at the University of Zurich.

David Klock studied law at the Goethe University Frankfurt, the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and De Montfort University in Leicester, United Kingdom (LL. M.). After his legal clerkship with stations in Frankfurt a. M. and New Delhi, India, he initially worked as a lawyer in the field of antitrust law in an international commercial law firm. Since January 2020, he has been a research assistant and doctoral candidate at the chair of Prof. Dr Thomas Fetzer at the University of Mannheim.

Moderation: Lena Schneider is a research assistant in the Communication and Marketing Department at the ZKM | Karlsruhe.

Organization / Institution

ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe