Democratizing the Market?

This article examines the promise of market democratization conveyed by consumer rating and review websites in the restaurant industry. Based on interviews with website administrators and data from the main French platforms, we show that review websites contribute to the democratization of critique, which first started in the 1970s, both by including a large part of the restaurant supply within the reviewing perimeter, and by broadening participation, opening restaurant reviewing to all. However this twofold democratic ambition conflicts with the need to produce fair and helpful recommendations, leading review websites to find compromises between these two dimensions.