This will make it impossible to research shill bidding when you suspect it. You basically have to go back through a sellers research and see all the bidders and look for patterns. Ideally a shill bidder is the second bidder so now you will be able to identify that person. I have only suspected it in one auction and it is hard to establish anyway. The shill just says- yah, I like that guys stuff but I never seem to win.
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Great Notch, NJ
> Brian,
>
> Your message prompted me to look at the recent eBay
> announcements, and sure enough, there it was:
>
> http://ebay.com/
>
> In a nutshell, the new policy, which replaces member ID's with
> aliases (Bidder 1, Bidder 2), started in November of 2006, being
> initially applied to auction-style listings with high bids of
> more than $200, with plans to apply it to ALL auction-style
> listings beginng in early 2007.
>
> So yes, eventually we will no longer know the ID's of the
> people bidding on any auction, even those where we are bidding.
> Nor we will be able to contact any of the non-winning bidders
> (neither during nor after an auction). At the end of an auction
> will we be able to see the ID of the winning bidder, but nobody else.
>
> Not only will this make watching auctions less interesting -
> no more "people watching" - but we will also have no idea who is
> bidding against us, or who we'll be sniping. We won't know when
> we are bidding against friends or rivals; nor will we know when
> Maddog is bidding, and so we won't know when to just forget
> about winning :)
>
> I have to say that I enjoyed reading the bidding history
> lists, and it was an integral part of my "Ended Items" review
> ritual. So this new system will definitely make eBay less fun
> for me (on the plus side I will probably spend less time on it).
> It's gonna be hard at first, but don't worry, I'm sure I'll be
> OK eventually. (Anyone interested in forming a support group?)
>
> As far as preventing sniping, the announcement says nothing
> about about that, and it doesn't look like this new system can
> or will prevent sniping, so at least we still have that (but for
> how long?!?).
>
> Ray Dobbins
> Miami FL USA
>
>
> brian blum wrote:
> I believe I read my EBAY news last week and they are changing
> all auctions
> to this format. They claim they can stop sniping with new
> software but it
> makes me leary. Brian Blum in Berkeley
>
>
> >From: Raymond Dobbins
> >To: Michael Schmidt ,classicrendezvous
> >
> >Subject: [CR]WAS: RH Rene Herse Crank - NOW: New eBay policy
> re:
> >biddinghistory
> >Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:49:32 -0800 (PST)
> >
> >Sorry, same post as before, but with a better subject title.
> >
> > Mike,
> >
> >This appears to be a new policy that eBay is implementing on selected
> >auctions, supposedly to protect non-winning bidders from scam
> second-chance
> >offers. I saw this Bidder1, Bidder2, etc, treatment for the
> first time on
> >a UK auction well over a month ago, and I've seen a couple more
> since then,
> >but this is the first time I recall seeing it in a US auction.
> I wonder
> >how eBay decides which auctions to apply this policy to, and
> more
> >importantly, whether eBay intends to eventually make this
> standard in all
> >auctions. It certainly would not surprise me, as apart from
> protecting
> >members from scams offers, it would also protect eBay from
> losing
> >business/money to legitimate offers and resulting transactions
> between
> >members, that exclude eBay (as for example, when a seller
> offers an
> >identical or similar item directly to non-winning bidders -
> something which
> >none of us would ever do, because that would be wrong).
> >
> >If we start to see more and more of these anonymous bid history
> >lists, I guess we'll know.
> >
> > Ray Dobbins
> >Miami, FL USA
> >
> >
> >Michael Schmidt wrote:
> > Item 170067458029
> >
> >Crank arm is in fair shape. Right side only. But what is really
> >interesting is to see what ebay is doing on the bidder identity.
> >
> >Bidders are identified by number and not ebay name. No other
> auction is
> >doing this though.
> >
> >Mike Schmidt
> >Stirling, NJ
> >USA
> >
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
>
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