Keeping Transactions Honest

Any system of online markets aiming to exploit the full economic potential of today's transaction technologies will have inclusion as a priority. But a flood of small and unintermediated sellers of labor, services, goods, finance and content could threaten integrity of purchases. In institutionalized market activity, brands typically act as guarantors. Keeping atomized economic activity honest imposes new challenges. This briefing lists 6 features for a system of thousands of interlocking online markets initiated by a government concession. 

 

The intended system is called "POEMs" (Public Official E-Markets). Its for-profit operators will be incentivized to ensure buyers across its diverse sectors have their expectations met even when dealing with multiple small sellers with whom they may not transacted before. The tools available to them within a system of interlocking, horizontal, markets covering thousands of individual sectors include temporary withholding of payments, heightened identity checks, objective ratings, incentives to resolve disputes and inspection models.