Domain registrar GoDaddy has changed it's policy on employee bidding.

GoDaddy General Counsel Christine Jones released a statement announcing the company’s change in policy:

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.

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. 

Policies of Other Domain Service Providers

GoDaddy isn’t the only major expired domain service and auction house that lets its employees compete with customers. NameJet employees, and its partners Network Solutions, and eNom are allowed to bid on domain names through the service.

Enom has stated that their employees need managemSnapNamesent to sign off to purchase a domain from Namejet. However, they do have a strict policy against employees competing with customers in auction. Basically, the only way an employee can purchase a domain from Namejet is if no customer(s) have backorder the domain and management signs off.” This applies to Enom and NameJet, but not necessarily Network Solutions.

SnapNames, on the other hand, doesn’t let its employees bid against customers. The company stated policy is, “Oversee.net employees are strictly disallowed from bidding against customers.”

Sedo - Sedo places perhaps the most restrictions on its employees of any domain company. Kate Donahue, Director of Marketing for Sedo, explained:

Each employee (even our founders) are required to sign an agreement that they will not speculate in the domain market in any form during the term of their employment with Sedo. They must also disclose any domains which they had owned prior to their employment with Sedo. We do have one exception which allows them to purchase domains including their name, children’s or family names so that they can use them for personal sites, etc.

Pool - Pool allows employees to bid in auctions with restrictions, Employees can bid on an auction by either a) making a single, upfront proxy bid that can’t be changed or

b) “bidding to win”. In the latter scenario the employee can’t back out of the bidding at any point. He or she has to win the auction they enter. This prevents them from pumping up the price only to stick a customer with the bill.