How Concealing Sharing Economy Ratings Undermines Consumers' Trustworthiness and Appeal Across Digital Spaces

In the sharing economy, consumers are routinely rated based on their behavior in marketplace transactions. Increasingly, these ratings are migrating across platforms—for example, individuals may display their Uber rating on a dating site. This growing practice, further enabled by recent advances in data portability, raises a critical question: How does the disclosure or concealment of sharing economy ratings influence judgments in unrelated digital contexts? The current research investigates the broader implications of quantifying and evaluating consumer performance through sharing economy ratings across domains. In four experiments, we find that concealing (vs. revealing) one's sharing economy rating (e.g., Uber rating) on an unrelated platform reduces one's trustworthiness and appeal to a level at or even lower than that of a revealed low rating. However, these effects emerge only when the sharing economy rating is perceived as diagnostic. Concealing other, less diagnostic information (e.g., streaming platform preferences) does not decrease trustworthiness or appeal. This research advances sharing economy, privacy, and signaling theory by revealing that sharing economy ratings function as diagnostic signals beyond their native platforms, that withholding personal data can incur reputational costs when such data is perceived as diagnostic, and that data portability—despite its consumer-centric promise—may unintentionally expose individuals to reputational harm. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for consumers, platforms, and policymakers.