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Should GoDaddy Auctions display bidder handles?

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Should GoDaddy Auctions show bidder handles?

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  • Yes

  • No

  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.

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Arca

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NameJet, SnapNames, DropCatch and Pheenix show bidder handles in auctions, so that you know who you are bidding against, while GoDaddy only shows Bidder 1, Bidder 2, Bidder 3, Bidder 4, Bidder 5 etc.

What are the pros and cons of showing bidder handles? Do you want GoDaddy to introduce bidder handles? Or would you prefer NameJet, SnapName, DropCatch and Pheenix to switch to only showing Bidder 1, Bidder 2, Bidder 3, instead?
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
GD is set to bring as many $$$ to their shareholders as possible. Which is fine and it should work this way. By starting displaying bidding alias, members who repeatly indicated their desire to "make Huge Domains pay as much as possible", will be easier able to do so, simply by increasing their bids to such a level where Reberrys bot is set to overbid. Some other members will join this show, no doubts. As such, by starting displaying bidding aliases, GD will report even higher profits to their shareholders. They should consider starting displaying bidding aliases due to this reason alone. And of course a press release stating how open and transparent GD has become will be a good marketing.
 
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GD is set to bring as many $$$ to their shareholders as possible. Which is fine and it should work this way. By starting displaying bidding alias, members who repeatly indicated their desire to "make Huge Domains pay as much as possible", will be easier able to do so, simply by increasing their bids to such a level where Reberrys bot is set to overbid. Some other members will join this show, no doubts. As such, by starting displaying bidding aliases, GD will report even higher profits to their shareholders. They should consider starting displaying bidding aliases due to this reason alone. And of course a press release stating how open and transparent GD has become will be a good marketing.
If this is the case then why does GoDaddy continue to anonymize bidders? They must perceive anonymous bidding to benefit them more than public bidder handles.
 
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Possibly not to be watched on non-expiring auctions? There are a lot. What if somebody starts bidding on own domains or friends domains... GD would not want to become a "hero" like NJ last year with all the shills discovered on this forum
 
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Possibly not to be watched on non-expiring auctions? There are a lot. What if somebody starts bidding on own domains or friends domains... GD would not want to become a "hero" like NJ last year with all the shills discovered on this forum
Not sure if obfuscating suspicious bidding activity would be an aim for them. They seem to be stricter when it comes to fraudulent and shill bidding than NameJet or DropCatch.

Then again because there is no transparency it's impossible for us to really know how much unnatural bidding is going on on their platform.
 
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All votes so far have been for "Yes"..
 
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What is to stop some sort of organised cohesion or harassment against bidders? What if you want to buy loads and fly under radar? I can see some good points to anonymity what is the benefit to seller if buyer knows who their bidding against?
Trump bids first do you bid?
 
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What is to stop some sort of organised cohesion or harassment against bidders? What if you want to buy loads and fly under radar? I can see some good points to anonymity what is the benefit to seller if buyer knows who their bidding against?
Trump bids first do you bid?
This is for GoDaddy auctions expired pre-release domains (the vast majority of domains moving/being sold through godaddy auctions). So showing bidder handles or not for such auctions is not really about the seller (which is GoDaddy, and they know who is bidding anyways), but the advantages/disadvantages for the buyers of such names to know/not know who they are bidding against.

I don't know if what you said would happen but bidder handles are public at NameJet, SnapNames, and DropCatch and I've not heard of anyone complaining about "organised cohesion or harassment against bidders" there.
 
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NameJet, SnapNames, DropCatch and Pheenix show bidder handles in auctions, so that you know who you are bidding against, while GoDaddy only shows Bidder 1, Bidder 2, Bidder 3, Bidder 4, Bidder 5 etc.

What are the pros and cons of showing bidder handles? Do you want GoDaddy to introduce bidder handles? Or would you prefer NameJet, SnapName, DropCatch and Pheenix to switch to only showing Bidder 1, Bidder 2, Bidder 3, instead?

They have already stated they are not going to implement bidder id's.

http://tldinvestors.com/2017/11/godaddy-has-no-plans-to-implement-bidder-ids.html
 
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It was something I have been pushing for and writing about, but Paul Nicks just said. "It’s something we’ve considered but have no current plans to change."

https://www.namepros.com/threads/godaddy-domain-name-expiry-changes.1051138/#post-6445318
Even if they made such a statement in the past, I think the recent changes at their platform, with a huge increase in automated bot bidding activity has significantly changed the dynamics of bidding on their platform.

Nowadays you are up against automated bots and there is zero transparency about what is going on. So I think that makes bid handles more needed so that regular bidders can have some idea of what kind of bidders and what kinds of tools they are using to bid against you.
 
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Even if they made such a statement in the past, I think the recent changes at their platform, with a huge increase in automated bot bidding activity has significantly changed the dynamics of bidding on their platform.

Nowadays you are up against automated bots and there is zero transparency about what is going on. So I think that makes bid handles more needed so that regular bidders can have some idea of what kind of bidders and what kinds of tools they are using to bid against you.

I agree but this was just a few months ago that he said it.
 
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@equity78 - I saw a comment by Paul Nicks on another one of your posts where he said bidders should be anonymous because it is "in the best interest of our bidders to protect their identity."

However, based on the voting so far, users seem to be of a different mind in terms of what is in their best interest:
gd.png
 
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But to look at it from their perspective - What problems are bidders at NameJet, DropCatch and SnapNames struggling with as a result of having a bidder ID assigned to their account?

While I have seen people call for bidder handles at GoDaddy, I have never seen anyone call for bidder aliases to be removed at NameJet, DropCatch or SnapNames because they cause x problem.
 
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I think displaying bidder handle could be a minor annoyance for a small number of bidders, because this would attract more competition from newbies. "Look, a big domainer is bidding on this name so it must be good, let's outbid him". I think this is pure theory though, good names will get dozens of bids anyway.

I think GD are not interested in for several reasons (pure speculation on my end):
  • Their platform is old and buggy, they don't want to make in-depth changes
  • That's the reality of IT systems, they almost never get rewritten from scratch, developers just patch and keep adding features, and you end up with a big ball of mud
  • You don't fix what is not broken
  • When it is broken, you don't break it further unless you want to take the blame for things that go wrong. Change is dangerous.
  • If they introduce bidder handles, then other bidders can start tracking auctions and GD will become more accountable, people will start asking questions, request a review of certain accounts. GD don't want that.
So I think it is a mix of inertia and not wanting increased scrutiny when you can have plausible deniability
 
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I think displaying bidder handle could be a minor annoyance for a small number of bidders, because this would attract more competition from newbies. "Look, a big domainer is bidding on this name so it must be good, let's outbid him". I think this is pure theory though, good names will get dozens of bids anyway.

I think GD are not interested in for several reasons (pure speculation on my end):
  • Their platform is old and buggy, they don't want to make in-depth changes
  • That's the reality of IT systems, they almost never get rewritten from scratch, developers just patch and keep adding features, and you end up with a big ball of mud
  • You don't fix what is not broken
  • When it is broken, you don't break it further unless you want to take the blame for things that go wrong. Change is dangerous.
  • If they introduce bidder handles, then other bidders can start tracking auctions and GD will become more accountable, people will start asking questions, request a review of certain accounts. GD don't want that.
So I think it is a mix of inertia and not wanting increased scrutiny when you can have plausible deniability
At the same time, letting a small number of bidders use their API to place automated bids based on what others bid on is a large annoyance for every other bidder on their platform.

So if bidder handles were introduced, newbies might bid on names when a “big” bidder is bidding. But these big bidders that might have to pay more with bidder handles are currently going “look, a human is bidding on this name so it must be good, let’s have our bot outbid him.” And GoDaddy is providing them with the tools they need to achieve this.
 
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What I find strange about GoDaddy's unwillingness to adapt to the "standard" auction system used by SN, NJ, DC, where you can actually see who you are bidding against, is that it seems like it would be a win-win for both them and users if they did. Users want bidder handles to be introduced so that there is more transparency and clarity in terms of whether you're bidding against a human using the same system as you, or an automated bot that is just bidding against you because you are bidding. While Paul Nicks believes it's in the best interest of users to be anonymous, he seems to have misperceived what GoDaddy auctions users themselves think is best:
gd 2.png


People clearly want bidder handles in expired auctions. So by introducing this GoDaddy can show that they actually listen and care. And on top of that, as @tonyk2000 noted, they would bring in more $$$ on auctions as people would bid up the auto bidding bots. By letting big bidders use the API to bid up everyone else, why not bring in bidder handles to let everyone else bid up the big bidders? It seems that GoDaddy is doing everything they can to facilitate the needs and wishes of the large companies using their API to bid, yet when regular users want something reasonable, it cannot be done because the interests of the large bidders/API users need to be protected. You'd think giving regular users what they want + bringing in more $$$ for their shareholders would be more important than hiding the identities of large clients bidding on their platform (whose identities are not hidden on other auction platforms anyways).
 
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How many people remember HAlvarez? Without bidder aliases that would have never come to light? Yet without bidder IDs who knows what goes on behind the scenes?
 
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How many people remember HAlvarez? Without bidder aliases that would have never come to light? Yet without bidder IDs who knows what goes on behind the scenes?
Yes, that's another example of why bidder handle transparency in auctions is beneficial.

I assume Adam Dicker, when he was working for GoDaddy as VP, would have gotten caught more quickly for bidding against customers if people could see who was bidding. Suspicious patterns quickly become evident when there is bidder handle attached to them. Without a bidder handle it’s just a black box and it’s anyones guess what’s going on.
 
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All votes so far have been for "Yes"..

That is why it won't happen. Shill bidding, inside bidding other tricks hard to track.

Noticed every domain I watched had at least 1 bidder after I watched it. I let one win and the domain when right to privacy.
 
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Noticed every domain I watched had at least 1 bidder after I watched it.
Why not to watch dozens/hundreds of nonsense domains (but good looking, such as without dashes and not typos) then? If watchlists are reported to api customers or to preferred customers - let them have it all :)
 
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That is why it won't happen. Shill bidding, inside bidding other tricks hard to track.
You mean GoDaddy's motivation behind keeping bidding anonymous is to hide shill bidding and inside bidding? Not sure I follow, but I assume they want to eliminate, not facilitate, such bidding activity. And if they want to fight off such bidding, transparency in the form of bidder handles goes a long way in terms of achieving that goal (presumably a win for GoDaddy, unless I've misunderstood your post...).
 
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If GD does not want to modify the system to implement this change -this would mean that they found that current system is more profitable for them at the end of the day. I am wondering what exactly makes it more profitable for GD...
 
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If GD does not want to modify the system to implement this change -this would mean that they found that current system is more profitable for them at the end of the day.
They haven't tried showing bidder handles so they don't have any profit data from which they can draw the conclusion that anonymous bidding is more profitable for them.
 
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