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GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers
An anonymous reader writes "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?"
At a minimum, get the word out so everyone knows about it. Also, vote with your dollars by taking your business elsewhere.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
In other words, you would take a stand on principle, but not if it costs you a bit more money. Heh.
it should be illegal (depends where you live).
if you want a minimum price then set a reserve, not all this BS.
or just make this a law; if you are in any way financially associated with the auction, it must be declared on every bid you make.
otherwise, how is this not bait and switch or thuggery?
thug: "give me $10!"
person takes out wallet containing $30
thug: "give me $30!"
The whole domain name market has gotten out of control. Most unused domain names are now being used as nothing more than garbage linklists to generate ad revenue, while they sit at auction sites for $1,000 or more. It amazes me to think these garbage sites can generate more revenue than it costs to register the name. And then to sit on these names waiting for thousand dollar payoffs is outrageous. If ICANN intends domain names to be like real-estate then they need to provide permanent ownership. Otherwise they need to raise their own registration fees to prevent this kind of domain abuse. I for one tire of Google searches that return a list of b.s. sites.
:T:R:A:N:S:
The company I buy my domains from is only $12/year for a .com, just $2 more than GoDaddy (even less difference if you register for a longer period of time). I consider $2/year difference to be a pretty inconsequential amount of money, especially considering that it also keeps me from worrying about getting fucked over by my registrar.
I doubt Charles Dickens would comment on anyones last name.
With this recent disclosure, I can no longer trust them. In my opinion, unethical is not a strong enough word to describe the act being reported.
If you are maintaining 200+ domains then you should be making enough profit over the course of the year that it's registered to negate the extra price.
If all of them are personal domains then I'd just have to say what the hell? Why would you need 200 personal domains?
Perhaps the answer is that the only way godaddy can afford to price domains so low is by implementing a basket of shady policies that make them money on the side.
The question is whether it's just for the government to enforce "ethical" or "moral" behavior that doesn't directly harm others. Examples include bidding on one's own auctions, lying, and cheating on one's spouse.
Its = possessive. It's = "it is"
It may be legal, but it is unethical.
And when you are a registrar, by far your most important asset is trust. GoDaddy no longer has mine, and I will no longer recommend them.
Well, in the simplest terms you are wrong, but the explanation is more complicated.
Knowing allowing shill bidding (whether by yourself or others) is cause for revocation of an auctioneer's license or fines by state regulators. The state law most often says that a business cannot conduct auctions without an auctioneer's license, so the leverage for fines and punishment is generally against continued ability to conduct auctions and not strictly a legal matter aside from maybe breach of contract claims or similar.
Shilling itself may or may not be illegal state by state, but just because you can't go to jail for it alone does not preclude you having your ass handed to you in a courtroom. Again, you can be sued under breach of contract or for violation of the UCC for which law may allow certain claims.
In this particular case, ICANN probably has some type of contract governing the auctions that GoDaddy is probably also violating. I would imagine that their hole is pretty deep in this matter.
What can be done to force ICANN to police the registrars for which it is responsible?
What can be done to police ICANN?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Reserves are just a play on words to try to trick buyers. The only difference is whether the bid is rejected before or after the auction is completed. It is dishonest, and it should be illegal. The people using reserves can tell themselves how they are not lying about what the real minimum bid is, but since there is no other reason for a reserve other than to trick people into thinking that their bid is valid, the people setting reserves are just rationalizing their immoral behaviour.
Reserves are the main reason I quit even bothering with e-bay. I got tired of bidding on something, and then 3 days later, finding out that the person selling the item had dismissed my bid before I even placed it. This prevented me from placing a bid on another auction for the same thing.
Can you say squatter?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My boss had this happen to him too. They tried to bill an outdated card, instead of the good card numbers that they had, didn't notify him, and sold the domain to a cyber-squatter. He wasn't very happy with GoDaddy at the time.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Summary: "We didn't do anything wrong, but we're going to stop doing it."
Quit being a weasel. Take a stand. Make a choice and stick with it.
Either say that it was ok and you are going to continue to allow your employees to do it, or say that it is not ok and that Mr. Dicker did something wrong.
And if you [ go under a bus / get blown up / fall out with your customer / get overwhelmed ] all your customers will bitterly wish that they had gone with godaddy.
I had a friend do what you did and he totally frazzed out under the stress, his "micro" business went under.
One of my associates, his customer, had to go to the hosting company and pay them so he could get his servers out; but before that it was a mad drive across country to find the guy who had just dropped off the map.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com