Review on computational trust and reputation models

The scientific research in the area of computational mechanisms for trust and reputation in virtual societies is a recent discipline oriented to increase the reliability and performance of electronic communities. Computer science has moved from the paradigm of isolated machines to the paradigm of networks and distributed computing. Likewise, artificial intelligence is quickly moving from the paradigm of isolated and non-situated intelligence to the paradigm of situated, social and collective intelligence. The new paradigm of the so called intelligent or autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (MAS) together with the spectacular emergence of the information society technologies (specially reflected by the popularization of electronic commerce) are responsible for the increasing interest on trust and reputation mechanisms applied to electronic societies. This review wants to offer a panoramic view on current computational trust and reputation models. © Springer 2005.his work has been supported by the European project SLIE, IST-1999-10948, and the Spanish MCYT project e-INSTITUTOR, MCYT 2000-1414. Currently, Jordi Sabater enjoys a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (6th European framework program) contract No MEIF-CT-2003-500573.Peer Reviewe