Should GoDaddy Auctions display bidder handles?

[Arca]

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?

 

[tonyk2000]

so why would they have a problem with domainers bidding up HD

If (and only if) HD is receiving discounts or cashback maybe... If HD won the domain for $100 then with (for example) 50% discount GoDaddy will earn $50 only. Now, if somebody else won the domain for $99 - without bidding up HD - then GoDaddy will earn all $99. This is not to say that HD is necessary receiving discounts/cashback, but if they do - then displaying bidder handles will not make more money to GoDaddy, as HD will likely win more domains

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

But GoDaddy is already providing HugeDomains with real time info about every domain that get bids so that HugeDomains can bid on those names. So HD is already tracking what all domainers bid on and they are pumping up the bids on those domains. GoDaddy is clearly facilitating HD to bid up all other domainers, so why would they have a problem with domainers bidding up HD?

I understand what you said. But what I'm saying is totally different thing.

Suppose if GD starts displaying bidder handles and HD using Huge and domainers using Domainer1 and Domainer2 bidding handles. Now after digging the bidding activity of HD, both domainers would know that HD is going up to $205 per domain so both domainers will try to bid up to $200 only and will make HD to pay their max which will ultimately hurt HD only. Hiding the bidding handles is most beneficial to HD since they're buying up the big chunk of expiring inventory.

You got my point this time?

 

[Arca]

I understand what you said. But what I'm saying is totally different thing.

Suppose if GD starts displaying bidder handles and HD using Huge and domainers using Domainer1 and Domainer2 bidding handles. Now after digging the bidding activity of HD, both domainers would know that HD is going up to $205 per domain so both domainers will try to bid up to $200 only and will make HD to pay their max which will ultimately hurt HD only. Hiding the bidding handles is most beneficial to HD since they're buying up the big chunk of expiring inventory.

You got my point this time?

Your point is that GoDaddy’s top priority is to benefit HugeDomains, and that what their “regular” users want takes a lower priority?

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Your point is that GoDaddy’s top priority is to benefit HugeDomains, and that what their “regular” users want takes a lower priority?

Exactly!

 

[Kate]

GD has been resisting the change well before HD swamped the auctions.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

GD has been resisting the change well before HD swamped the auctions.

Right. But IMO even if they have given a thought about the change before HD jumped into action, now they wouldn't be making it ever unless HD stops buying expiring domains at GD.

 

[DNWon]

You can't get caught up in shill bidding controversies if bidding handles are anonymous!

 

[Arca]

Right. But IMO even if they have given a thought about the change before HD jumped into action, now they wouldn't be making it ever unless HD stops buying expiring domains at GD.

While I understand that they might want to "protect" HDs' advantages, but now that they are buying a lot of domain, I think their current buying activity (along with that of other API users) requires more bidder transparency. There are so many irregularities and strange bidding pattern going on with their API users. Sometimes API users have even accidentally placed a bid on too many domains and had those bids cancelled. The different buying conditions for regular users and API users have created an unfair market for the former, and it’s now very difficult for regular users (humans, not bots) to judge what is going on in the bidding process.

These large users were given API access to bid on a large number of domains, but their original "need" has been warped into facilitating them to set up bots to bid on everything regular bidders bid on. I understand that API bidders have the need to bid on a large number of domains. But I do not understand why they have the need to see real time every bid every user on GoDaddy auctions places, so that they can bid on them. GoDaddy seemingly didn't have a problem with sidelining regular bidders in this way, but in the interest of every regular user I think they now should introduce bidder transparency to balance this out (if they care at all about their regular users). Only then can regular users have a fair position to evaluate the bidding that is going on in auctions, with regards to the other parties bidding in the auction. I think their auctions would function more properly for their regular users again with bidder handle transparency, because it would go a long way in terms of demystifying the unequal bidding benefits that API users have behind their anonymized bidder handles (at least we can see what is going on, which would put us in a more informed position in terms of how we approach bidding against these api users).

 

[tonyk2000]

why they have the need to see real time every bid every user on GoDaddy auctions places

Do we have a strict evidence that even a single bid is reported to api users? It appears that "most active" webpage shows everything with 2 or more bids, and does not currently show domains with 1 single bid.

It would also be interesting to find out if watchlist domains - which are no more shown on a website to regular users - are still reported to api users or not. For this purpose, during last weeks I added and "watched" a number of random (but good looking) expiring domains which no human domainer in their sane mind should register for resale (imho). TMs, domains without any reasonably-well-funded endusers (low GDP geo or low-$$$ niches), etc. About 70% of those were grabbed to my great surprise. Others were/are shown as BIN-available for $11 earlier or later, so this experiment did not show any "definite" result so far.

@Joe Styler can you englighten us please...

 

[Arca]

Do we have a strict evidence that even a single bid is reported to api users? It appears that "most active" webpage shows everything with 2 or more bids, and does not currently show domains with 1 single bid.

It would also be interesting to find out if watchlist domains - which are no more shown on a website to regular users - are still reported to api users or not. For this purpose, during last weeks I added and "watched" a number of random (but good looking) expiring domains which no human domainer in their sane mind should register for resale (imho). TMs, domains without any reasonably-well-funded endusers (low GDP geo or low-$$$ niches), etc. About 70% of those were grabbed to my great surprise. Others were/are shown as BIN-available for $11 earlier or later, so this experiment did not show any "definite" result so far.

@Joe Styler can you englighten us please...

If somebody places a bid it usually shows up on expireddomains.net within 1-2 minutes. Another bid is placed, again it's reflected within 1-2 minutes. Expireddomains.net use their API to pull this info real time, so GoDaddy provide this option via their API. Bidder number is indicated starting from one single bid (i.e. $10/12 bid). Just sort by "endtime" on their site and you can monitor real time every single domain that gets a bid before auction end.

On particularly active days I have placed bids on completely garbage domains just to see if anyone else would bid because I bid. I placed bids when there was 10 seconds left (a reasonable indication that nobody else would have bid before auction end time) on completely worthless domains, and like clockwork, counter bids came in. I find it hard to believe anyone could be aware/interested in such garbage names unless my bid tipped them off. They all were bought by HugeDomains, who is a known API bidder. I strongly assume that if I did not place those bids, HugeDomains would not have bid against me. HugeDomains is well known for "piggybacking" off any bidding activity, a strategy that would have been very difficult to accomplish on such a large scale as they operate unless they had real time info about every domain that gets a bid at GoDaddy auctions.

 

[BrandChimp]

I'd be curious to see who is winning all the auctions

 

[Joe Styler]

Do we have a strict evidence that even a single bid is reported to api users? It appears that "most active" webpage shows everything with 2 or more bids, and does not currently show domains with 1 single bid.

It would also be interesting to find out if watchlist domains - which are no more shown on a website to regular users - are still reported to api users or not. For this purpose, during last weeks I added and "watched" a number of random (but good looking) expiring domains which no human domainer in their sane mind should register for resale (imho). TMs, domains without any reasonably-well-funded endusers (low GDP geo or low-$$$ niches), etc. About 70% of those were grabbed to my great surprise. Others were/are shown as BIN-available for $11 earlier or later, so this experiment did not show any "definite" result so far.

@Joe Styler can you englighten us please...

You can see the same things on our auction site as a non API user that an API user can see. You can use the advanced search to see bids if you want. There is also an FTP anyone can access in the tools section with listings info. That is not updated real time but it has a ton of info in one shot if you are looking for something like that.

 

[Steven McEvoy]

Pointless thread they will never do it. They would lose a lot of money.

 

[werty]

Yes, more transparency is needed.

 

[Joe Styler]

Our thought behind this has been in place for many years. More than a decade. The reasoning has nothing to do with a big bidder and everything to do with the fact that we believe a bid should stand on its own merit. If you want to buy a domain name you should pay what you feel it is worth not what you feel someone else whose handle you recognize as a more experienced domain investor thinks it is worth. We do review this from time to time but we have not changed it.
Frankly speaking this thread makes it more unlikely that we would change it where some of the comments are pointed towards targeting certain bid ids to hurt them based solely on their bidding id and not on the quality of the domain in your estimation.
The other issue being shill bidding. We have several layers of fraud checks in place, manual and automated that keep a close eye on bidding practices to make sure this does not occur. Shill bidding is against the law and not something we would tolerate even if it were not as it is against the philosophy of our auctions which ties in with the above. We want a domain name to stand on it's own value and everyone to be on an even playing field when bidding on domain names on our platform. Shill bidding makes the field uneven and it is not something we tolerate.
At the end of the day the argument can be easily made for the converse that bidding handles are meaningless as a shill bid deterrent in and of themselves without the additional checks in place we already have. Why? What stops someone from creating multiple accounts with multiple bidder ids? It is fairly easy and quick to do. So if I were trying to bid on my own names why would't I create some throw away accounts with fake info and different bidding handles. So you would be pretty much left in the same position you are now, you'd have to trust us to police it and monitor new handles etc and their relationship to the auction they are bidding on. We do this now and we watch very closely for shill bids.
I think it is always good to discuss this and there are strong feelings on both sides but it is not something we are looking at changing any time soon.

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

To bad people, think your getting hosed at the gas pump? Wait till you try and fill up at godaddy.
Your customers are not happy Joe, maybe daddy will figure it out in another decade.

Good thing is this thread has caused people to do tests, causing auction end prices to rise. Thank them

Remember folks, goodaddy is a domainer now too, not just your registrar. They got you coming and going

 

[tonyk2000]

we believe a bid should stand on its own merit

This sounds good, no doubts. Does GoDaddy understand that the way the current API is programmed (and, generally speaking, providing this API only to selected favorite customers by itself) is NOT in line with the above philosophy?
Most notably:

These large users were given API access to bid on a large number of domains, but their original "need" has been warped into facilitating them to set up bots to bid on everything regular bidders bid on. I understand that API bidders have the need to bid on a large number of domains. But I do not understand why they have the need to see real time every bid every user on GoDaddy auctions places, so that they can bid on them.

Does GoDaddy realize that, currently, thanks to your API and how it is used, you have various very legitimate and lawful outsourced "halavarez"es - strictly in sense of the final outcome? Final outcome to us the human customers is the same - we overpay. And, by the way, does GoDaddy realize that the unfortunate "halvarez" story was detected with the help of customers, because the auction house in question (SnapNames) did show bidding handles, even though SnapNames customers were also told "you have to trust us to police and monitor"?
Does GoDaddy realize that, even though other auction houses do show bidding handlers and provide api access, their large customers are, generally speaking, not suffering from anything as the result of being shown who they are - "taryn"(NameJet), "saggydimes"(SnapNames), etc. - we all know them...

 

[Kate]

And, by the way, does GoDaddy realize that the unfortunate "halvarez" story was detected with the help of customers, because the auction house in question (SnapNames) did show bidding handles, even though SnapNames customers were also told "you have to trust us to police and monitor"?

In the real world auction houses are subject to all sorts of regulations, codes of conducts and some kind of audits normally. No such thing in the domain industry. What happened at SN is that somebody was in control of the IT, in a position of trust and was able to deceive his own employer for a long time. The other venues could be honest but infiltrated by hackers and not knowing it. I am always wondering how many registrars/auctions houses have had penetration tests conducted against their systems at least once, to make sure their environments are safe and sound.

 

[JB Lions]

It is fairly easy and quick to do. So if I were trying to bid on my own names why would't I create some throw away accounts with fake info and different bidding handles. So you would be pretty much left in the same position you are now, you'd have to trust us to police it and monitor new handles etc and their relationship to the auction they are bidding on. We do this now and we watch very closely for shill bids.

The trust issue. You have to understand with this being online and no transparency, that's a hard thing to do. With bidder handles, it's just more eyeballs watching besides yourself. The reality is bidder handles have helped find shill bidding, see recent examples with Namejet. It also helped in the Snapnames case with Alvarez in the past. It would probably help find things at GoDaddy as well. More transparency tends to do that.

 

[tonyk2000]

you'd have to trust us to police it and monitor new handles etc and their relationship to the auction they are bidding on. We do this now and we watch very closely for shill bids.

I am sorry, but GoDaddyAftermarket/Afternic do not have resources even to set a webforwarding from http to https on afternic.com for _new_ visitors, something that was discussed in maybe dozen posts and threads right on this forum. GoDaddy aftermarket and Afternic do operate with lack of human resources to perform even basic tasks, so how we are supposed to trust that GD is tecnically able to "watch very closely" what you are writing about?

 

[wwwweb]

dibs on username HUGE

 

[DNWon]

Dibs on username "Shill"!

Short for Steve Hill!

 

[tonyk2000]

and we already have statistically significant number of votes in the poll. Hope that @Joe Styler also voted... Joe, did you? I am not asking what exactly did you vote for But the poll itself shows that GoDaddy has something to think about... and seriously

 

[equity78]

Our thought behind this has been in place for many years. More than a decade. The reasoning has nothing to do with a big bidder and everything to do with the fact that we believe a bid should stand on its own merit. If you want to buy a domain name you should pay what you feel it is worth not what you feel someone else whose handle you recognize as a more experienced domain investor thinks it is worth. We do review this from time to time but we have not changed it.
Frankly speaking this thread makes it more unlikely that we would change it where some of the comments are pointed towards targeting certain bid ids to hurt them based solely on their bidding id and not on the quality of the domain in your estimation.
The other issue being shill bidding. We have several layers of fraud checks in place, manual and automated that keep a close eye on bidding practices to make sure this does not occur. Shill bidding is against the law and not something we would tolerate even if it were not as it is against the philosophy of our auctions which ties in with the above. We want a domain name to stand on it's own value and everyone to be on an even playing field when bidding on domain names on our platform. Shill bidding makes the field uneven and it is not something we tolerate.
At the end of the day the argument can be easily made for the converse that bidding handles are meaningless as a shill bid deterrent in and of themselves without the additional checks in place we already have. Why? What stops someone from creating multiple accounts with multiple bidder ids? It is fairly easy and quick to do. So if I were trying to bid on my own names why would't I create some throw away accounts with fake info and different bidding handles. So you would be pretty much left in the same position you are now, you'd have to trust us to police it and monitor new handles etc and their relationship to the auction they are bidding on. We do this now and we watch very closely for shill bids.
I think it is always good to discuss this and there are strong feelings on both sides but it is not something we are looking at changing any time soon.

Joe we know why you are not changing any time soon. Why do you think we trust the checks you have in place? Every platform says they have checks in place. Either you believe in transparency or you don't.

 

[equity78]

The trust issue. You have to understand with this being online and no transparency, that's a hard thing to do. With bidder handles, it's just more eyeballs watching besides yourself. The reality is bidder handles have helped find shill bidding, see recent examples with Namejet. It also helped in the Snapnames case with Alvarez in the past. It would probably help find things at GoDaddy as well. More transparency tends to do that.

Exactly