Patent ID: 8843385

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for rewarding a client for providing a feedback report in a computer system having a reputation mechanism for monitoring the quality of service of a service provider, the method comprising: instantiating the reputation mechanism on the computer system; receiving at the reputation mechanism, a first feedback report from a client of the service provider, the feedback report having information relating to the quality of service provided by the service provider to the client; selecting randomly at the reputation mechanism, at least two reference reports associated with the service provider from a pool of reports, the reference reports relating to the quality of service provided by the service provider wherein at least one of the reference reports is a second feedback report from another client; computing in the reputation mechanism a probabilistic score of the first feedback report by measuring a quality of probability distribution of the at least two reference reports as induced by the feedback report; determining, by the computer system, a reliability indicator for the first feedback report as a function of the probabilistic score of the first feedback report; determining, by the reputation mechanism, an incentive value associated with the client, wherein the incentive value is indicative of the client's probabilistic economic advantage in falsifying at least some information of the first feedback report; and computing, by the computer system, a payment for the client using a function of the reliability indicator, the first feedback report and the at least two reference reports, wherein the function minimizes an expected average payment in accordance with a set of at least two constraints, wherein one of the constraints is that the expected payment for providing a truthful feedback report is higher than that for a non-truthful feedback report by at least a minimum margin that is a function of the incentive value.