GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers in Domain Auctions | Hacker News Reader

GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers in Domain Auctions

domainnamewire.com

14 pointstortilla9 comments

Domain auctions are always a voodoo science.

Especially when you're talking about domain sniping, and the subsequent silent auctions where you don't really know if you're bidding against ANYONE, but you still have to put in a maximum bid just in case, and you don't get any feedback on whether you've bid enough money or not until after the auction is over.

There's so little visibility that no one really knows what's going on or if they're inflating prices or using fake people to auction against you or anything.

What do you guys think about a true registry-level wait list policy? Maybe combined with open auctions if there's more than one person waiting. Then we wouldn't have these companies with hundreds of fake registrars constantly pinging the registry getting away with all this stuff.

The guy runs http://dnforum.com - he is a very well known domainer. He just took the job not too long ago. There was a thread about it on DNForum.

GoDaddy knew this - it is probably why they hired him. By doing that they probably knew that he would continue his domaining business activities. (Which could, at some point in the future, create a conflict of interest.)

That said.. I don't think this is that big of a deal. So the guy won a few domain auctions - if he wasn't there someone else would have won them. He just happens to be the person that won in this case.

The problem is there's a huge conflict of interest. He could easily bid up auctions he had no intention of winning, thus inflating prices. Another is he might be able to see the bids or domain watchlists of other bidders, which gives him a huge advantage.

I don't understand.. why would he specifically want to bid up auctions? To boost GoDaddy's revenue?

If GoDaddy wanted to do that, why do they need him - couldn't they already have been doing that, before they hired him??

I'm not saying he specifically bid up auctions, but there's a possibility. So it weakens trust with all parties involved. All the other major companies have some policy against this (not all). I would also figure that his compensation is tied to the performance of his division (domain auctions).

It's almost like saying, "I don't see the problem with that figure skater also judging the event."

I've already transferred 80% of my domains away from GoDaddy. This last breach of goodwill and trust has motivated me to move the rest.

yeah dude, I would have done the same lol

Time for other companies to get ready with additional servers for massive switching haha

That's just unacceptable behavior.

If we were really a force as internet consumers, we should drop them in mass to show them not to fuck up with us.

And every wrongdoer after them.

Auction rigging to generate bigger revenues eh

Could this company be sued for this?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com