GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers

[Rob J]

From Slashdot: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/29/0625249

"A GoDaddy Vice President has been caught bidding against customers in their own domain name auctions. The employee Adam Dicker isn't just any GoDaddy employee; he's head of the GoDaddy subsidiary that controls the auctions. Dicker won some of the domains he bid for, and pushed up the bid price on auctions he didn't win. The conflict of interest is unethical, but could this practice also be illegal? Said a representative for a competitor, 'Even if controlled, that practice has bad news written all over it.' This comes hot on the heels of news that despite earlier promises to ICANN to end their 60-Day ban on transfers, GoDaddy quietly circumvented it by forcing customers to agree to the ban anyway. ICANN doesn't appear to be investigating or asking follow-up questions about this. What can be done to force ICANN to police the registrars for which it is responsible?"

 

[.X.]

Take a breath and read the article that equity78 posted, I doubt very seriously that Parsons even knew this was going on. you have to remember. peoples jobs can be on the line, If sales decrease to a low level. the people involved in the shill bidding, were most likely trying protect their job, they should be fired immediately. Godaddy is a huge company now, It more than likely took a substancial amount of time for HR, to even find out this was going on. It could be happening right now, with some of our top tier domain auction sites as well.

Godaddy isn't to blame for this, the ass whipes who were shill bidding are.

 

[ahtum]

Take a breath and read the article that equity78 posted, I doubt very seriously that Parsons even knew this was going on. you have to remember. peoples jobs can be on the line, If sales decrease to a low level. the people involved in the shill bidding, were most likely trying protect their job, they should be fired immediately. Godaddy is a huge company now, It more than likely took a substancial amount of time for HR, to even find out this was going on. It could be happening right now, with some of our top tier domain auction sites as well.

Godaddy isn't to blame for this, the ass whipes who were shill bidding are.

Huh ? Their hall business model is ment to rob you ... Don't tell me Parsons doesn't know about all the hidden fees Godaddy applies ...

http://nodaddy.com/ LOL

 

[fonzie_007]

To be fair to GD and Dicker, I do not believe there is any evidence that shill bidding occurred. Shill bidding is completely different than if Dicker was legitimately bidding and purchased the domains (which is what appears to have happened).

 

[.X.]

To be fair to GD and Dicker, I do not believe there is any evidence that shill bidding occurred. Shill bidding is completely different than if Dicker was legitimately bidding and purchased the domains (which is what appears to have happened).

I wasn't aware of that, But any way it goes, there is no way i would defend Dicker, not gonna happen.

 

[Name Trader]

Or RJ in the auctions here?

I won an auction against -RJ- I must have paid too much

 

[labrocca]

To those defending Dicker based on the fact that he owns DNF...I think that's a poor excuse. That's not respect...that's fear your DNF account might get cancelled.

I stopped posting there a long time ago because I didn't like a few things I was witnessing. I don't think it's fair to attack him but I don't think it's fair he gets blind defense as well.

He should have known better.

http://www.cmpda.org/press/030610.html

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=791

Adam isn't as clean as you might think. He strikes me as the type of person to justify things for his own personal gain.

 

[fonzie_007]

To those defending Dicker based on the fact that he owns DNF...I think that's a poor excuse. That's not respect...that's fear your DNF account might get cancelled.

I stopped posting there a long time ago because I didn't like a few things I was witnessing. I don't think it's fair to attack him but I don't think it's fair he gets blind defense as well.

He should have known better.

http://www.cmpda.org/press/030610.html

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=791

Adam isn't as clean as you might think. He strikes me as the type of person to justify things for his own personal gain.

I don't know Dicker and I don't know Parsons. I'm just giving both parties the benefit of the doubt before I jump to conclusions. You may be right about Dicker, but then again, you may be wrong. I'm just trying to be reasonable and treat others the way I would like to be treated if I was in a similar situation.

 

[labrocca]

He is an insider. He should not have been bidding. Whether he won the auctions or not doesn't matter. If he won it's maybe because he knew the top bid was low. If he lost then that means he helped to bid up a domain name. There is no win situation in this.

As a "respected" domainer he SHOULD have known that bidding in that scenario would be unethical...possibly even illegal. There should probably be an official investigation about this. In most states shill bidding is illegal and if he lost an auction that's what he is doing. The company he works for profits off his bids win or lose. They profit.

I would like to see what other heavyweights in the industry think of all this.

 

[Dave_Z]

if he lost an auction that's what he is doing.

How do we know Adam was shill bidding?

 

[bmugford]

GoDaddy.com deserves the lions share of the blame on this. The fact that they had no policy in place to block this is ridiculous. Any company needs to have policies blocking these kind of insider actions. The problem is no one knows exactly what happened, but it sure looks shady on many levels.

 

[unholygod]

actually.., aren't the .us domains allowed to .us citizens only ??

 

[Rob J]

How do we know Adam was shill bidding?

I think he meant that even if he wasn't intentionally shill bidding, the end result is the same as if he was shill bidding (he drove up the price of the auction to his employers benefit).

 

[labrocca]

I think he meant that even if he wasn't intentionally shill bidding, the end result is the same as if he was shill bidding (he drove up the price of the auction to his employers benefit).

Exactly. Even if he never intended to shill...by losing even one auction that's what he has done. I still believe this should be investigated further by law enforcement.

 

[Mark]

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/06/godaddy-vp-caug.html
http://www.cnet.com/8301-11455_1-9980873-10.html

A few more articles ...

A Domainer bidding on Domains is not news of course - And Godaddy does state he had no inside information on the auctions anyways ... But that was the division he was hired to run - Wasn't it ? It's hard for me to understand how no one there thought this would not be seen as a conflict of interest. And we're supposed to just take their word on everything as well ...

 

[YAYnames.com]

And we're supposed to just take their word on everything as well ...

Trust Us! :lol:



.

 

[labrocca]

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/06/godaddy-vp-caug.html
http://www.cnet.com/8301-11455_1-9980873-10.html

A few more articles ...

A Domainer bidding on Domains is not news of course - And Godaddy does state he had no inside information on the auctions anyways ... But that was the division he was hired to run - Wasn't it ? It's hard for me to understand how no one there thought this would not be seen as a conflict of interest. And we're supposed to just take their word on everything as well ...

Exactly why there should be an official investigation here. If there was wrong-doing it could be prosecutable and at the least civil action for those who bid along with Adam. I don't see why more people here aren't screaming over this. If nothing wrong happened then fine but on face value it smells bad.

 

[eggymusic]

they should initiate some kind of official investigation on this matter

 

[Charley]

I don't see why more people here aren't screaming over this.

I am, but are the "cops" monitoring the thread ?

 

[VirtualT]

Conflict of interest yes, shill bidding no.
Adam doesn't strike me as being the type who would risk his reputation over a relatively low value name this this

 

[Rob J]

Conflict of interest yes, shill bidding no.
Adam doesn't strike me as being the type who would risk his reputation over a relatively low value name this this

Alot of people in this thread on a first name basis with "Adam". What you feel about him personally is about as relevant as what Nicki Sixx feels about Tommy Lee. Most people don't know either of them, it means nothing!!!

Look, Adam Dicker may indeed be a stand up guy, hell maybe he cured cancer, I don't know, but that's all irrelevant! There are millions of GoDaddy customers who can't say "oh yeah I know Adam, he's a great guy I trust him!".

The people in this thread who DO know Adam Dicker need to take a step back, and consider the issue from a 3rd party prespective. The question is NOT "is your friend who you know and love and trust a cheating scumbag?", the question IS "do you think this guy who controls GoDaddy auctions biddding on GoDaddy auctions is a conflict of interest?".