Automated Negotiation on Agent-Based e-Marketplaces: An Overview

This paper first describes a few existing models for product and merchant brokering and automated negotiation in the framework of agent-based e-marketplaces. Our analysis shows that only simplest types of automated negotiation protocols are currently presented online, whereas some powerful systems have been already implemented in the product and merchant brokering field. Then we give an overview of theoretical approaches to automated negotiation including game theory based negotiation, multi-attribute utility theory based negotiation and auction based negotiation. We also discuss some further challenges for researchers and practitioners working in the field of automated negotiation in the framework of agent-based electronic marketplaces. 1