Matching of Incomplete Service Specifications Exemplified by Privacy Policy Matching

Service matching approaches determine to what extent a provided service matches a requester's requirements. This process is based on service specifications describing functional (e.g., signatures) as well as non-functional properties (e.g., privacy policies). However, we cannot expect service specifications to be complete as providers do not want to share all details of their services' implementation. Moreover, creating complete specifications requires much effort. In this paper, we propose a novel service matching approach taking into account a service's signatures and privacy policies. In particular, our approach applies fuzzy matching techniques that are able to deal with incomplete service specifications. As a benefit, decision-making based on matching results is improved and service matching becomes better applicable in practice.