It’s time to step back and re-evaluate domain name auctions.
The news today about an employee bidding at SnapNames is certainly disappointing. So here’s my take on what the domain industry should do.
First, chill out. I’ve seen a bunch of comments today from people that now assume everyone who ever beat them in an auction is a fake bidder or scammer. Look, there are a lot of people out there who bid at the last second, bid in a lot of auctions, and bid to win.
Second, it’s time that we re-examine domain name auctions, be they expired auctions, live auctions, or whatever. A lot of questions have been posed in the past that have never really been addressed. Here are few:
-What are domain auction companies doing to prevent this from happening in the future? A lot of people have questioned shill bidding at expired domain auctions. We’ve had to trust the company that it is playing above board. Now claims of illegitimate bidding will have to be taken seriously. That also goes for non-paying bidders. NameJet has done a lot to clean up issues with non-paying bidders; it almost lost its credibility thanks to the issue.
-Should people who financially benefit from a particular auction be allowed to bid? I’m specifically talking about domain conferences that get a cut of auction proceeds. I see two problems with conference organizers bidding in these auctions: if they bid and don’t win, the winning bidder paid a higher price, of which the organizer gets a cut, and second, if they get a cut on a domain they buy then they got a discount.
-Are all existing live domain auctions even legal? In some states you need to have a licensed auctioneer; in others you need to post bond to hold an auction. There are some loopholes, such as calling an auction a “private” auction, but you know what they say about loopholes.
Manoverboard says
Obviously Halverez was not the only bidding alias Nelson used. When will Snap/oversee release the other bidding aliases?
Adam says
this has a familiar ring to it 😉
Manoverboard says
Nelson isn’t dumb. He wasn’t backordering the same names fo every tom dick and harry. He was copying the backorders of a few dozen pros who backorder in bulk every day. Oversee will be paying a lot back, but most of it will be going to a couple dozen guys.
Rick says
I wonder how many domains he acquired back when there were no auctions and first backorder won? As an ‘inside trader’ he certainly would have an big advantage to securing the first backorder on many valuable domains. If he was crooked now, he’s most likely been crooked for a very long time.
Marg says
I would find it easier to “chill out” if my Snapnames Order History from Dec 2007 back hadn’t just been deleted by Snapnames. From comments on Namepros and DNForum, it seems that most everyone else has just had their order history deleted for the most affected 2005-2007 period. Would Snapnames please comment why they deleted the Order History records from this time period?
Andrew Allemann says
Marg, et al – are you sure the records have “just been deleted”? When was the last time you checked before today? I don’t know that they’ve shown history that far back for a while.
Steve M says
And; whether we like it or not; the mainline media is now off and running with the story:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/11/snapnames_former_exec_bid_up_d.html
Rob Sequin says
NOT COOL!
The more I read about this and think about it the more upset I’m getting.
Snapnames better handle this right if they want to have a change of making it through this.
The good that will come out of this will be a total lock out of all employees even remotely tied to any auction and this shill bidding issue will go away forever.
Halverez says
Don’t tell me to chill out dude.
None of you can do anything so yes, chill out and take it and shut up.
Marg says
I have also been reviewing the extremely active threads at Namepros and DNForum on this issue. What is making many people really angry is that for some years now Snapnames has been repeatedly asked / warned / approached about “Halvarez” bidding patterns on Snapnames. Every time, back came the soothing corporate answer, of “Oh, no, nothing to do with us..”Some of these (now toe-curling) answers from Snapnames are being posted on the above forums.
Adam says
“The good that will come out of this will be a total lock out of all employees even remotely tied to any auction and this shill bidding issue will go away forever.”
how would you ever know or be so sure?
Gazzip says
I noticed my pre 2007 auction history records were deleted from my account months ago, I’m sure of that.
Ryan says
I am not sure when they deleted the order history, but it was not today. I happened to check my Snapnames order history yesterday and noticed that my 2005-2007 info was missing. It could have been deleted yesterday minutes before I checked, or it could have been months ago as it has been a while since I last looked at it (other than my attempt yesterday).
Andrew Allemann says
So it sounds like the removal of 2005-2007 data happened long before this issue was discovered. So SN isn’t trying to trick people by removing it.
In light of what has happened, however, they should probably restore it.
Gazzip says
I am 100% sure it was done quiet a few months ago “before this issue was reported”.
That does’nt mean that snapnames was’nt aware what was going on at that time…If you see what I mean !
Who Knows ??
Stu Maloff says
It seemed that Halvarez is in just about every auction I was involved in. He did not always win the auctions. I think he bid on so many at a time, he was unable to keep up.
As per the previous email, I won hundreds of names on Snap Names. The registration info is all there, but they seemed to have deleted most of my bidding history and only have a couple left with Halvarez involved.
They should not people handling the investigation from within.
mansour says
How about no anonymous bidding on auctions anymore. After all the whois information is public,Sedo and Afternic should have an exclusive listing from the domain owner before offering the domain name for sale. In live auctions, most of the time you know who is bidding against you. You cannot blame those of us, who have paid thousands of dollars to get a domain name from snapnames, to be suspicious that we were bidding against a ghost, and this may have caused us to pay double what we would have paid if no cheating was involved. I am waiting to see if any of the domain names I bought involved phantom bidding, and snapnames should be completely honest and issue a complete refund to those who got cheated.
Seb says
Agree with Gazzip.
Removal of bidding history didn’t happen overnight.
I checked bidding history more than a year ago and noticed auctions older than 2 or 3 years were removed from the bidding history.
Now the question is why ?
This full data history was certainly not taking that much server space…
Did SnapNames noticed something fishy at that time and tried to hide something ?
Andrew Allemann says
Seb, I can think of lots of other services that only show, say, the last 12 months of data. Think online credit card accounts, phone statements, etc.
SL says
Does anyone know why Afternic’s past sales link doesn’t work anymore? Maybe they restructured something:
http://www.afternic.com/names.php?c=0&sold=1
It’s fun to see which domains “Apollo” recently bought, as he shows up very frequently in the past sales list.
Unfortunately it looks like I’ll need to find a new pastime.
Mike says
Call Craig Snyder, President of Snapnames and demand your money back.
Call him out for his scam.
Andrew Allemann says
Mike, don’t blame Craig for the scam. He just got there a few months ago. From everything I’ve heard about him, he wouldn’t sweep something like this under the rug.
Russell says
The one question I still haven’t seen raised, and the first thing that popped into my head when hearing this news, is what motive would this “rogue” employee have for shill bidding to boost the company’s bottom line?
I’m not making any accusations, but it doesn’t make any sense to me how the only person at the company with any knowledge of this going on would be an employee who wouldn’t see any direct financial benefit from it.
I would like to hear Snapnames response to this.
Andrew Allemann says
Russell – part of the reason I’m avoiding using the term “shill” is that people are overusing it here. It makes it seem like he was only bidding to boost Snap’s revenue. But he was actually doing it to profit himself. He got a lot of domains, parked them, sold a lot, etc. This wasn’t just to raise prices.
Rob Sequin says
Andrew,
We don’t know why Brady was bidding up domains.
Maybe he was bidding up domains to meet revenue targets so he could get bonuses. That’s shill bidding.
Maybe he was bidding up domains to raise revenue which raises the valuation of the company of which he owns shares. After all, snap was bought by oversee for $25million.
You say he sold a lot.
Do you have proof of that? I ask not to challenge you but if he sold one domain to one person who knew what he was doing then you have a criminal conspiracy.
Andrew Allemann says
Rob – I don’t know how many domains he sold. But we know he sold some to iREIT, and they were buying big portfolios. However, he did transactions with parking companies using the name Henry Alvarez, and perhaps he sold domains at Alvarez, too. So the people who were buying from him may not have had any idea.
Rob Sequin says
“So the people who were buying from him may not have had any idea.”
Nelson Brady is pretty well known as a senior executive at Snapnames and domain buyers know the owner/seller of a domain. Right? You are not going to send paypal to someone@privacyprotect.org. Right?
So, if someone bought a domain from Nelson Brady, and knew he was the VP of Snapnames and chose to look the other way, I think there is a problem there.
Now, the next question is, was Brady working for someone at iReit or other strong buyers?
Interesting that Craig Snyder came from iReit. No?
iReit can’t buy lots of domains from Nelson Brady and not know what’s going on. So, if iReit bought lots of domains from Nelson and didn’t think anything of it then they are either stupid or part of the conspiracy.
So, Craig goes from iReit to Snap and didn’t know what was going on at iReit?
Look, I am not a big conspiracy theorist but if iReit was buying domains from Nelson Brady, they had to know, or should have known that something was not right.
If Craig Snyder worked at iReit and didn’t know iReit was buying domains from Nelson Brady then he’s a pretty stupid guy or he’s in on it.
So, either Craig Snyder is stupid or he is one of the conspirators?
Fair question?
Answer?
Either way a resignation might be appropriate.
This story has a LONG LONG way to go.
Rob Sequin says
OR
Craig Snyder is a hero?
http://dotsnews.com/domain-name-news/611
Craig, tell us the truth otherwise these questions are going to float around forever and Snap will never recover.
The next move is up to Craig Snyder and Oversee.
Andrew Allemann says
Rob – why would Craig Snyder knowingly walk into this firestorm at Snap? Doesn’t make sense.
It’s very possible he was involved in uncovering it, but I don’t know why on earth he would have taken this job if he knew this was going to happen.
Rob Sequin says
I don’t know but I would hope that he tells us. At this point he owes us an explanation.
1. He didn’t know what was going on at iReit.
2. He DID know what was going on at iReit and did nothing making him a conspirator.
3. He DID know what was going on at iReit and left the company.
Either way, he owes us an explanation about the relationship between ireit and snap since he left one company and went to the other.
Adam says
The conspiracy theories need to ease up a little here. He doesn’t owe you anything.
Rob Sequin says
Nelson sold domains to iReit while Craig worked at iReit.
Then Craig goes to Snapnames and becomes Nelson’s boss.
Craig DOES owe us an explanation or at least a statement declaring his ignorance.
I am not accusing him of being involved but what did he know and when did he know it?
If he knew nothing, why not?