Following up on GoDaddy’s pledge to make its auctions more transparent, I was just notified that GoDaddy will be introducing unique bidder IDs for all bidders on GoDaddy Auctions. The plan is to implement this change following the close of auctions tomorrow, April 11th.
Each bidder will be given a unique bidder identification number, which will be different and unrelated to the customer account number to prevent social engineering. Bidder identification numbers will be automatically assigned sequentially, and they can not be changed by a bidder. The only way for a bidder to get a new or different bidder ID is to create or use another GoDaddy Auctions account.
During the course of an auction, the individual bidders will continue be masked as they are now (“Bidder 1,” “Bidder 2,”…etc). At the conclusion of the auction, participants in the auction will be able to see the unique bidder ID number for all participants in the auction. This will allow third parties to track who was bidding on their auctions. I was told GoDaddy will not be showing bidder IDs during an auction to prevent bidder harassment. This could help prevent a situation like this. and it could also prevent an auction being “run up” because someone well-known is the lead bidder.
The bidder ID numbers will be sequential, meaning someone with a lower ID number has been a GoDaddy Auctions bidder for a longer time than someone with a higher number. This could be helpful for people who are concerned someone just signed up to bid up an auction, although someone could have signed up specifically to bid on a particular auction. I think this would be more helpful to people concerned about shill bidding on private auctions rather than expiry auctions.
I would prefer to see bidder IDs during an auction, but it does not sound like this is under consideration. I do think this is a good step for GoDaddy to take to help increase transparency.
One additional step towards transparency that I would like to see GoDaddy take is to report its public domain name auction sales data. I think this data will be a boost to the aftermarket, ensure that reported data is accurate, and provide more comparable sales information for buyers and sellers. GoDaddy Auctions is a public venue where anybody can participate, and I think this would be a boost to the aftermarket.
Should I hear that the implementation of bidder IDs get delayed, I will provide an update.
Crazy workaround: You write down the winning bidder’s “unique id” after the auction concludes, then wait until the domain is assigned and you can match the ID with the information in the whois (if it is not on privacy).
Next time you see that ID pop up in an auction you know who it is. Thanks for playing. So why not go with the Namejet model directly and save everyone some time.
I missed the point.. My bad.. please ignore.
This is a good start towards transparency.
That decision is ridiculous and totally ineffective to bring due transparency.
Bidders ID should correspond to the Account details (the Account Owner name, not the customer account number), so that you know who you are bidding against, either is a company or a private individual. That way no “social engineering” would be practicable.
Providing Bidder IDs only after the auction has ended confirms GoDaddy has no intention to be transparent. It’s just smoke and mirrors …
The “harassment” excuse is even more pathetic … they just need to block the comment section to stop it.
Ask yourself why they don’t want transparency …
I rather have less transparency than have the HugeDomains Bots start stalking me cause the bots detect they like the domains I pick. That’s just me however, if people don’t mind getting bid up by HugeDomain bots stalking them, lucky them for having so much money.
You are missing the key point.
And FYI HugeDomains bots can also stalk you now with no transparency.
I don’t follow. What do you mean?
What GoDaddy is doing here is just window-dressing … they have no intention to be transparent … guess why …
Do you get that or do you need a drawing? … lol
Sure – please provide a drawing for me. Why not?
Kidding aside, I would prefer to have public bidder IDs during an auction.
I don’t follow either, how do you think HugeDomains bots can stalk which auctions I’m bidding on now? Cause they can’t.
Well, I guess if anyone ever knew they were bidding with HugeDomains in an auction that could put a damper on things.
this is not good…
whoever decided this should be fired at GoDaddy…
why cant we just have complete transparency…
use first and last name and make that your bidder id…
keep it simple…there is no hiding.
Does Godaddy still provide summary-level auction reporting? At one point, they had a monthly report with total number of auctions, total winning bid price and the top ten sales for the month.
I agree with you Elliot, GoDaddy Auctions should show bidder ID’s during domain auctions.
This just seems like an empty gesture really. It makes it look like GoDaddy is doing something for transparency, but it is really window dressing and doesn’t actually solve anything.
Brad
Absolutely!
Exactly! they are just trying to fool us.
This is a little move by godaddy but doesn’t help anyway to stop employees bidding or fake bidding, fake bid never had intentions to buy the name , they always exit as second winner so how we gonna find out whom we was bidding against since we are the winner or if we are loser but come as 4 th bidder and down the lane.
I have already slow down bidding on expired names till everything get clear.