Go Daddy Bans Staff Domain Bidding
- By theWHIR.com , July 02, 2008
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By David Hamilton, theWHIR.com
July 2, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Discount web host Go Daddy (godaddy.com/) met allegations of unfair, insider bidding in TDNAM (tdnam.com) domain name auctions by drafting a corporate policy restricting employees from participating in auctions.
Posted on a NamePros.com message board on June 20, it was originally reported by Domain Name Wire (domainnamewire.com) editor Andrew Allemann that Go Daddy employee Adam Dicker had outbid another poster on the domain name spyware.us in what some members considered an unethical business practice.
Go Daddy released a statement this week announcing the company's new policy. Go Daddy General Counsel Christine Jones said, "To ensure customer confidence and to avoid any possible future questions of impropriety, all GD employees are now and in the future prohibited from participating in TDNAM auctions, purchasing, sales & back orders."
While measures have been put in place to eliminate the conflict of interest, Go Daddy defends Dicker and his actions. Jones said, "Go Daddy has reviewed the auction and found nothing improper. Adam Dicker's knowledge on the auction was no different from what any customer coming to our TDNAM site would have had."
At the time of the controversy surrounding Dicker's activity, GoDaddy Vice President of public relations Elizabeth Driscoll told Domain Name Wire that there was no policy to forbid employees from engaging in public auctions or registrations, but also noted there are "tools in place to prevent anyone from gaining the opportunity for an unfair advantage in securing a domain name through registration or auction."
Go Daddy joins competitors SnapNames (snapnames.com), Moniker (moniker.com), and NameJet (namejet.com) in banning executives from participating in auctions and inflating bid prices.
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Comment by Anonymous on Wednesday, July 02, 2008
This is a step in the right direction but these are serious implications and not a very serious response coming from any registrar or domain auction site.
GoDaddy, Tucows, Melbourne IT, and of course Register.com should be forced to release back all the names they skimmed off the expired lists and kept for house portfolios.
How does ICANN allow registrars to also be domainers? Doesn't anyone see the conflict of interests and shill bidding going on? This is against state laws in many states in the US so hopefully some attorney generals will WAKE UP.
Comment by Anonymous on Thursday, July 17, 2008
GoDaddy just notified their employees (7/17) to not bid on domains in TDNAM. Took them long enough. Lying hypocrites!
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