Online reviews have a significant influence on consumers, and consequently firms are motivated to manipulate online reviews to promote their own products. This paper develops an analytical model to systematically explore the impact of online review manipulation on asymmetrical firms who sell substitutable search products in a competing market. Results show that a firm’s manipulation of online reviews is not necessary to hurt its competitor’s profit. In addition, if firms are free to choose whether to manipulate online reviews, both firms will always choose to manipulate online reviews. Moreover, there exists a prisoner’s dilemma in which online reviews are overmanipulated.

在线评论对消费者有重大影响，因此，公司被激励操纵在线评论来推广自己的产品。本文开发了一种分析模型，以系统地研究在线评论操纵对在竞争市场中出售可替代搜索产品的不对称公司的影响。结果表明，公司对在线评论的操纵不必损害其竞争对手的利润。另外，如果两家公司可以自由选择是否操纵在线评论，那么两家公司将始终选择操纵在线评论。此外，存在囚徒困境，其中在线评论被过度操纵。