WOT Services

Web of Trust ( WOT briefly - Web of Trust ) is one of the largest platforms for rating websites and is mostly used by a browser extension. The code is available as open source software in the GNU GPLv3 available, but the main program is to which the ratings are sent and analyzed proprietary. WOT was originally developed by Sami Tolvanen and launched in July 2006. The platform WOT has its headquarters in Helsinki, Finland.

Operation

Although the functions of WOT can also be found on the website of the operator, but can be used by most users directly in the form of a browser extension that is available for Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Google Chrome and Apple Safari. The basic principle of WOT is that every user can in principle evaluate any Web site or any domain in the categories Trustworthiness, Vendor reliability, privacy and protection of minors, each user with his or her browser leave for each site only one vote, but change at any time can. The votes of all users ratings for a particular site will be summarized and a consequent weighted average is taken, which is in turn displayed to each user when calling a Web site in the form of a colored ring directly in your browser. The color of the ring is the user doing analogous to a traffic light system as a clue to the trustworthiness of the called site ( green, yellow and red for trustworthy, less trustworthy and untrustworthy ), the display can also be adjusted for color-blind.

The more users evaluate a particular website, the more representative and tamper- resistant is the mean value obtained from the individual reviews. With the help of this concept of swarm intelligence is to create a representative as possible and due to the large mass of individual ratings difficult to be manipulated Overall, depicting the average of a large mass of users. In addition, each user can also write personal comments overvalued by him websites in which he justified his vote in your own words.

In addition to this free service WOT also offers premium services for website owners.

Disadvantages of the concept

A disadvantage of the concept is that the evaluation of a website is only truly representative and reliable, if a large number of users it has evaluated. The reputation of a website that is visited and rated by only a few users, can therefore easily be moved both in the positive and in the negative portion.

Furthermore, user ratings weighted partially different. Thus, the evaluation of a user who has issued a total of very many reviews are weighted higher than that of a user who only selectively uses the tool. Even the most active users will have access to a "Mass rating tool " offered, which allows up to 100 pages can be evaluated simultaneously, without requiring them to be visited.

In addition, is considered disadvantageous that the theoretical possibility that WOT could mitprotokollieren the surfing behavior of its users, because the browser you are using every time a website makes contact with the WOT database to request the actual mean vote across the host site and the display users. WOT is, however, in its user and data protection regulations, not to monitor the surfing behavior of its users and the opinions expressed by the users reviews only anonymous and depersonalized store in the evaluation database.

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