In Peer-to-Peer (P2P) media distribution, users obtain content from other users who already have it. This form of decentralized product distribution demonstrates several unique features. Only a small fraction of users in the network are queried when a potential adopter seeks a file and many of...

"Brushing"---online merchants placing fake orders of their own products---has been a growing phenomenon on major e-commerce platforms. On the one hand, brushing enables merchants to boost their rankings in search results, because products with higher sales volume are often ranked higher. On the...

Traditional online platforms (e.g., Amazon Marketplace) use Unilateral Rating System (URS), where customers rate sellers. However, sharing economy platforms (e.g., Uber, Airbnb) have adopted Bilateral Rating System (BRS) that also allows service providers to rate customers, and even selects...

Recommending substitute products on focal products' pages on an e-commerce website can impact product sales in two ways. First, the visibility of a product as a recommendation on other products' pages may increase its exposure and result in a greater number of its page views. Second, visibility...

New technologies such as product simulators and virtual reality now allow firms to provide realistic product usage experiences and reduce buyer uncertainty about product quality. We argue that today's firms should view product design and investments to reduce buyer uncertainty as an integrated...

We study optimal bidding strategies for advertisers in sponsored search auctions. In general, these auctions are run as variants of second-price auctions but have been shown to be incentive incompatible. Thus, advertisers have to be strategic about bidding. Uncertainty in the decision- making...