Enhancing service selection with a provider trustworthiness model

In service selection, service consumers usually consider service functionalities and use technical quality of service (QoS) or price to differentiate between services of the same functionalities. That alone, in practice, is not adequate since the quality of service providers can also have influence on selection decisions. This paper applies a concept of interpersonal trust, especially trusting beliefs, to devise a quality of provider model. The model is based on competence, benevolence, and integrity of service providers, and trust score can be computed using the fuzzy set theory. Service consumers can then use the trust scores, in addition to technical QoS and price, in service selection.