Reglikedomain industry desk

Here’s what NameJet is doing regarding shill bidding

Firm releases statement counting changes it is making.

Domain name auction site NameJet has posted an update regarding allegations of shill bidding and what it’s doing regarding it. You can read the full statement here, and here’s a summary:

1. NameJet has suspended some accounts that were bidding on their own domains.

2. The firm made a technical change to prevent bidders from being able to bid on their own domains. (It’s surprising this was ever a possibility.)

3. It’s creating an activity tracking system to detect shill bidding.

4. It has created a dedicated email address (report_abuse at namejet.com) for people to note questionable activity.

5. It is suspending the “next bid wins” practice whereby sellers were able to lower their reserve so that the next bidder would win. This seems to be more of a perception issue than an actual shill bidding issue.

I think these are good steps in the right direction. I’d also suggest verifying ownership of domains ahead of they can be listed and only letting the owner list domains, not a third party. Letting a third party list domains opens the system to abuse.

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