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Strategic Free Information Disclosure for Search-Based Information Platforms

Authors:

Sanmay DasAuthors Info & Claims

AAMAS '15: Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems

Pages 635 - 643

Published: 04 May 2015 Publication History

Abstract

We investigate information platforms that enable and support user search. Consider users engaged in a sequential search process (e.g. for used cars or consumer goods in e-commerce, or partners on a dating website). Many platforms provide basic information on opportunities of interest for free, while also offering, at a price, premium services that can offer more information to the user on the potential values of different opportunities. Prior research has focused on the question of how to price such services. Here we investigate a novel strategic option: can the platform provide some of the premium services for free, and increase its profit in doing so? By analyzing game theoretic equilibria in such a model, we show that there are cases where the platform can indeed benefit by sometimes providing information for free. The underlying mechanism is that sometimes offering free services leads to more extensive usage of the expert's paid services. A robustness analysis shows that even if the population of users is heterogeneous and a large portion of it a priori does not use the premium services, offering parts of the service for free can still be beneficial for the platform despite the potential misuse.

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Cited By

Alkoby SSarne DMilchtaich I(2019)Strategic signaling for selling information goodsProceedings of the 28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence10.5555/3367032.3367037(25-31)Online publication date: 10-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3367032.3367037
Segal-Halevi EAlkoby SSharbaf TSarne DElkind EVeloso MAgmon NTaylor M(2019)Obtaining Costly Unverifiable Valuations from a Single AgentProceedings of the 18th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems10.5555/3306127.3331824(1216-1224)Online publication date: 8-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3306127.3331824
Alkoby SSarne DSegal-Halevi ESharbaf TAndre EKoenig SDastani MSukthankar G(2018)Eliciting Truthful Unverifiable InformationProceedings of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems10.5555/3237383.3238000(1850-1852)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3237383.3238000
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Strategic Free Information Disclosure for Search-Based Information Platforms
1. Applied computing
  1. Law, social and behavioral sciences
    1. Economics

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Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

AAMAS '15: Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems

May 2015

2072 pages

ISBN:9781450334136

General Chairs:
Gerhard Weiss
Maastricht University, The Netherlands
,
Pınar Yolum
Bogazici University, Turkey
,
Program Chairs:
Rafael H. Bordini
PUCRS, Brazil
,
Edith Elkind
University of Oxford, UK

Sponsors

IFAAMAS

In-Cooperation

SIGAI: ACM Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence

Publisher

International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems

Richland, SC

Publication History

Published: 04 May 2015

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Research-article

Funding Sources

NSF CAREER award
ISF grant

Conference

AAMAS'15

Sponsor:

AAMAS'15: International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems

May 4 - 8, 2015

Istanbul, Turkey

Acceptance Rates

AAMAS '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 108 of 670 submissions, 16%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,155 of 5,036 submissions, 23%

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Citations

Cited By

Alkoby SSarne DMilchtaich I(2019)Strategic signaling for selling information goodsProceedings of the 28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence10.5555/3367032.3367037(25-31)Online publication date: 10-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3367032.3367037
Segal-Halevi EAlkoby SSharbaf TSarne DElkind EVeloso MAgmon NTaylor M(2019)Obtaining Costly Unverifiable Valuations from a Single AgentProceedings of the 18th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems10.5555/3306127.3331824(1216-1224)Online publication date: 8-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3306127.3331824
Alkoby SSarne DSegal-Halevi ESharbaf TAndre EKoenig SDastani MSukthankar G(2018)Eliciting Truthful Unverifiable InformationProceedings of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems10.5555/3237383.3238000(1850-1852)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3237383.3238000
Alkoby SSarne DSingh SMarkovitch S(2017)The benefit in free information disclosure when selling information to peopleProceedings of the Thirty-First AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence10.5555/3298239.3298385(985-992)Online publication date: 4-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3298239.3298385
Alkoby SSarne DMilchtaich ISingh SMarkovitch S(2017)Strategic signaling and free information disclosure in auctionsProceedings of the Thirty-First AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence10.5555/3298239.3298289(319-327)Online publication date: 4-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3298239.3298289
Azaria ASarne DAumann Y(2017)Distributed Matching with Mixed Maximum-Minimum UtilitiesACM Transactions on Economics and Computation10.1145/30389115:2(1-23)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3038911
Hajaj CSarne D(2017)Selective opportunity disclosure at the service of strategic information platformsAutonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems10.1007/s10458-016-9357-131:5(1133-1164)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10458-016-9357-1
Hajaj CHazon NSarne D(2017)Enhancing comparison shopping agents through ordering and gradual information disclosureAutonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems10.1007/s10458-016-9342-831:3(696-714)Online publication date: 1-May-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10458-016-9342-8
Rochlin ISarne D(2015)Constraining information sharing to improve cooperative information gatheringJournal of Artificial Intelligence Research10.5555/2910557.291056854:1(437-469)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2910557.2910568

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