Once again the domain name market has been tarnished by unethical practices.

A GoDaddy Vice President has been caught bidding against customers in their own domain name auctions. The employee Adam Dicker isn't just any GoDaddy employee; he's head of the GoDaddy subsidiary that controls the auctions. Dicker won some of the domains he bid for, and pushed up the bid price on auctions he didn't win. The conflict of interest is unethical, and maybe even illegal. According to an ENOM representative, 'Even if controlled, that practice has bad news written all over it.'

This practice, known as shills, or "potted plants", is sometimes employed in auctions. Driving prices up with phony bids, they seek to provoke a bidding war among other participants. Often they are told by the seller precisely how high to bid, as the seller actually pays the price (to himself, of course) if the item does not sell, losing only the auction fees.

Shilling has a substantially higher rate of occurrence in online auctions, where any user with multiple accounts (and IP addresses) can shill without aid of participants. Many online auction sites employ sophisticated (and usually secret) methods to detect collusion.

T-Rex does not support the practice of shilling in domain name auctions. We consider this practice at odds with the idea of protecting consumers and their rights..