Shill Bidding at SnapNames.com broke out.

I've received this email today from Namejet.com, one of the top domain name auction in the business today. They sent the email to give assurance and security to their customers due to shill bidding that was exposed in another auction site Snapnames.com. It took them years to discover the security breach, while this issue being discussed for years in public domain name forum.


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Dear Valued NameJet Customer,

As you may have already heard, another company in our same line of business, SnapNames, was the victim of an internal security breach. We wanted to address any concerns you may have and assure you that at NameJet we have the necessary security protocols in place to prevent this kind of incident.


What Happened at SnapNames:

According to SnapNames, an employee set up an account on SnapNames under a false name. Under this account, the employee bid in SnapNames auctions. In many instances the bidding by this employee caused the ultimate auction winner to pay more for a name than had the employee not participated in the auction. In addition, on certain occasions, when the employee won an auction, the employee secretly arranged for a refund from SnapNames. This was in violation of SnapNames internal policy, and once discovered the company immediately closed the account in question and the employee was dismissed.

We commend SnapNames for taking quick and decisive action once it discovered its security breach.

NameJet has Strict Security to Prevent Anything Similar:

You should have full confidence nothing similar has occurred on NameJet. We have security procedures and policies in place that monitor all activities to ensure that “shill” bidding does not occur. Further, employees are strictly barred from bidding on auctions and NameJet has both internal and external monitoring to ensure all security procedures are enforced. These procedures were developed and are maintained by two of the world’s largest and most trusted registrars.

Thank you for your business and for your ongoing trust in NameJet.

If you have any questions regarding this issue, please contact us at [email protected].

Sincerely,

Steve Brown
General Manager
NameJet.com
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Despite this assurance from NameJet.com, I prefer to see 3rd party security audit to provide the assessment report. I will wait to see this happen, and I hope soon.

Related post from domain name blogs:

• http://domainnamewire.com/2009/11/04/in-snapnames-scandal-conspiracy-theorists-were-sort-of-right/
• http://www.domainnamenews.com/news/snapnames-discovers-employee-bidding-domain-names/6479

Please post here if you find any related news.