Wow. I'd like to see a response from GoDaddy on whether their employees (and executives!!!) are allowed to bid up names on their own auction platform. I wonder if any of the domains I won on TDNam that day were improperly bid up by TDNam employees such as Dicker?
I'd also like to hear from GoDaddy (or Dicker) whether he, or any other GoDaddy employees or favored customers, receive a discount, commission, or rebate on their TDNam purchases (other than the renewal price part). It is particularly unfair if GoDaddy employees or favored customers are able to falsely inflate prices and, when they win, only pay a fraction of their winning bid prices.
I have long felt that GoDaddy cannot be trusted, and that is one of the reasons I argued against them taking over as .us registry (and I'm glad their bid failed).
Yes, this seems unfortunate. Well, we live and we learn. We're learning more about Godaddy. In hindsight, it's probably better that Godaddy wasn't awarded the keys to the .us registry.
I'd love for GD to have won the contract. I'd rather have a few gem's sniped at auction as long as GD would market .us the way it needs to be marketed.
.Us would be years ahead in a short period of time if GD had beat out Nuestar
__________________ If you have over 200 domains I'll send you an invitation to SedoPRO send me a PM
I see your point, but I don't agree. Here's why: I believe one huge reason .info is such a weak TLD is because the some of the registry's (Afilias) employees and Board members fraudulently obtained prime .info names (like maui.info) during the Sunrise Period reserved for trademark holders. Major corporations don't want to brand their trademark in an extension run by pirates. As bad as Neustar is at hyping .us, they appear not to have the same type of scoundrels running the registry. Unfortunately, now Godaddy is tarnished with this Adam Dicker thing.
It's not that Adam has done anything improper; I don't believe he has. But for the same reason that companies and other entities don't allow their employees to participate in their drawings or contests (the LOOK of impropriety) is the same reason GoDaddy shouldn't allow their employees access to a system that MAY give them an edge over the general public.
We will never know for sure, and that's the problem. I don't think Bob Parsons cares too much about it. He's too consumed with busty brunettes to care about shenanigans within his organization.
The DomainNameWire article about auction service employees bidding up the prices of their own auctions notes that NameJet may allow the practice juts as GoDaddy (TDNam) does. However, the phone rep Andrew spoke to may have been wrong. According to a DomainNameNews entry, Enom Sr. VP Taryn Naidu says:
"I have no idea how anyone got the ‘information’ that Namejet allows employees to bid but I can tell you that it not the case. We definitely do NOT let employees compete in auctions. Even if controlled, that practice has bad news written all over it."
So apparently SnapNames, Moniker, and NameJet ban executives from logging on and inflating bid prices. GoDaddy (TDNam) allows the practice. I'm interested in hearing the policies at Sedo and Pool.
I wish GoDaddy would add more transparency to their auctions by at least showing which users I'm bidding against, as Pool, SnapNames, and NameJet all do. Now that I know GD employees are bidding against me, I'm wary of trusting them with private bid information such as proxy bids and adding names to my watch list.
I respect Adam Dicker and don't think he would abuse the insider information he has access to. But I still think he should choose between running TDNam, and participating as a bidder there. He can still bid on SnapNames, NameJet, Pool, and all the others.
I don’t like to see insider bidding going on anywhere, but when I heard that the VP of the TDNam has purchased some quality .US domains that actually made me feel good, because for several years now a lot of the old school domainers have been putting .US down and saying that it wasn’t going to go anywhere, so to see someone who has first hand knowledge of the domain market putting his money on .US is a big blow to all those naysayers and should be a cause for celebration for all the .US fans. Of course I still think that it is unfair for an average domainer to be bidding against someone who has insider info, so that part of it needs to be fixed somehow. IMO
I'd be surprised if the phone rep were actually wrong. They confidently answered the question for me after I identified myself and what I was writing about. They even said, without my prompting, "but they have to pay for the domain just like everyone else".
I realize NameJet is a deal with NetSol and eNom, but I'm surprised to see different information from both entities. And eNom hasn't personally contacted me about it. So we'll see.
__________________ Domain Name Wire - Daily news for the domain name industry.
What can't be proven one way or another is if an employee does or doesn't get a privilege that outsiders don't get because they are working for the auction company. The smart thing to do would be to avoid this line of questioning and just not have your employees bidding.
The other question that comes up is : how do you stop employees from bidding on names ? They can all have spouses, friends or other 'proxy agents' bidding on their behalf. . . Really there's no way to stop it .
Think about this as well : if I'm in charge of the aftermarket or an employee (likely rewarded on performance of the area I manage) and sales are a little down I would sure know of an easy way to boost my sales numbers. I'll just bid. Why wouldn't I . . . I meet my quotas, I keep my job and I get some good domains.
the sale prices are very very low.
