Algorithm Transparency and Search Manipulation: Steering vs. Persuasion

Abstract

We study a platform that prefers to sell the more profitable of two products. It designs an algorithm that determines the product the consumer encounters first, conditional on her best match. The algorithm simultaneously manipulates consumer attention (steers) and communicates information about match quality (informs). When the algorithm is opaque, it is difficult for a consumer to understand how product order is generated and what it reveals. In the platform's preferred equilibrium, it places the profitable product first. When the algorithm is transparent, the consumer understands the algorithm and what it conveys. Thus, the algorithm can persuade as well as steer. In some cases, the equilibrium algorithm deters search, in others, encourages it. In the former case, transparency helps consumers; in the latter, it harms some or all of them. Extending or shifting transparency requirements uncouples steering from information provision, reverting the consumer's welfare to opacity.