New Sedo Offer Page Look and Feel!

[Stian]

Yes, back in my newbie days. I dont park with them anymore but the domains are still listed in my account

Acro; Will removing the domains from your account solve the problem?

Remove the domains from your sedo account and they will not show up as 'for sale' when someone searches for them on sedo. Also, if the domain is not in your Sedo account, you will not be 'exposed' when someone searches for the domain on Sedo, as it will only say that it's 'already registered'.

The star rating will most likely be gone in a few days, as it's only a beta test and so far it hasn't exactly received a lot of warm welcoming. I agree that it's a bad idea, as it may mislead those who are used to eBay and other venues. The stars are for activity only and not reliability, "level of professionalism" etc. It's not a feedback system. I also agree with what NameGuy said; that if I receive a "lower end" offer from someone with 5 stars, then I would know that this is a person who makes a lot of transactions via Sedo and that he/she is most likely making a living off domaining. He/she will most likely see if he can grab the domain for a bargain, thus I will ignore the offer instead of countering it.

What I see as a problem here; is that I sometimes direct people (potential end-users) to the domain's Sedo listing, telling them to make an offer there (for added security). Previously I could do this without exposing the quantity of domain names I sell/have listed for sale, but now a potential end user will see that I have five stars and therefore see that I'm an active seller/buyer. This is not good at all. When you offer a domain name to a potential end-user, you want to make the impression that you "have decided to sell your domain name" and not that you sell domain names for a living.

Get rid of the star rating and let us have the opportunity to disable the new features and it's all good. I personally think Sedo is maybe the best platform for selling domain names and I certainly hope it'll stay that way. In other words, the newly added features is a huge step in the wrong direction for Sedo's popularity.

[Acro]

Well-said, Stian. But the issues at hand go deeper. Read my blog about how exposed the auction and trader data is.

sedo needs to not only address the issue of privacy, but to tighten up their security and programming methods.

[Stian]

Well-said, Stian. But the issues at hand go deeper. Read my blog about how exposed the auction and trader data is.

sedo needs to not only address the issue of privacy, but to tighten up their security and programming methods.

I agree that the entire structure of Sedo might need to be re-programmed and that it has some major security flaws, but that goes way beyond this particular discussion IMO.

Another great article BTW. I wouldn't be shocked if I saw you on Oprah one day, signing books.

[keyser]

I feel angry too after this unexpected move. I should leave sedo if there is no way to opt-out.

[tomsa]

Good move for the other PPC companies !

I am definitely going somewhere else.

[dominator]

When sedo introduced extra verification steps for buyers, many on the forum supported this even though it has even more potential to cost sales.

yesterday my sedo auction was canceled
before ending
but I didn't receive any plausible explanation

how do they know the buyer wouldn't pay???
he had no opportunity to pay

if the bidder was not verified, how was he able to offer more than $10K?
and why didn't Sedo tell me the identity of this bidder?

i believe the bidder should be given the opportunity to pay
and if he doesn't pay, i should be given his identity
because accepted offers are binding to both parties

(actually i don't need his identity, if sedo sues him, but they wouldn't do it)

so how do they protect me?
--------------------------------------

to me it seems that the new features are just for datamining (as showed above)

[Stian]

yesterday my sedo auction was canceled
before ending
but I didn't receive any plausible explanation

how do they know the buyer wouldn't pay???
he had no opportunity to pay

if the bidder was not verified, how was he able to offer more than $10K?
and why didn't sedo tell me the identity of this bidder?

i believe the bidder should be given the opportunity to pay
and if he doesn't pay, i should be given his identity
because accepted offers are binding to both parties

(actually i don't need his identity, if sedo sues him, but they wouldn't do it)

so how do they protect me?
--------------------------------------

to me it seems that the new features are just for datamining (as showed above)

If you look at the transaction you will find a link called "Your Contract" (right underneath the "Net amount to be credited" field). Click that link and you will see the buyer's details in the top left corner of the contract.

[katherine]

Well I just wrote a small scraperbot in PHP to grab the auctions.
Easy job.

For example I found out there is one seller that has 27 active auctions running
Another has 14, yet another has 10 .com, most of which having no prior bid. Perhaps he has a connection to a sedo broker

[dominator]

If you look at the transaction you will find a link called "Your Contract" (right underneath the "Net amount to be credited" field). Click that link and you will see the buyer's details in the top left corner of the contract.

no, i don't have it as a transaction
because i accepted the offer and started the auction that was stopped by sedo

[Stian]

no, i don't have it as a transaction
because i accepted the offer and started the auction that was stopped by sedo

In that case I believe sedo is obliged to release the bidders details.

[Carter]

Hey sedo when you share our religion on your pages?

Next time I pretend a feature with a link "this is a fake transaction" if you want add more transparency in the marketplace.

[Acro]

Still no call from sedo. I must have caused a stir saying "this is bullshit" twice

We're dealing with an extremely serious set of issues. I strongly urge sedo to take our concerns seriously and to immediately postpone the new features until the security holes are patched and our privacy is preserved.

[katherine]

Looks like they got the message.

[Acro]

I don't want another marketing speech from sedo's representatives. I want a SWITCH that will allow me to turn these "features" off, so that I can continue listing my 900+ domains on sedo. At the same time, Sedo needs to address the lax way that their programmers deal with database interfacing, which exposes all data to a sequential scraper.

[SedoCoUk]

Hi Everyone,

As a quick FYI, our tech team has made sure to remove all personally identifiable member ID data from the Seller's Activity Index. We apologize for the initial issue. Please note that member IDs are not present in the Seller Activity Index or on the Domain Portfolio Links (which can be deactivated if you wish as mentioned earlier)

Thanks for your understanding.

Monica

[Acro]

Thank you for acknowledging my posts and taking care of half the problem, Monica.

Indeed, the seller id info is now not available directly via an explicit URL. Your programmers now use hashed encoding to create a long - and hopefully secure - key in order to display the "Meet the seller" info.

Despite this change, they haven't changed the way that auctions are handled: one can still change the id to see a different auction, for example:

http://www.sedo.com/auction/auction_...ction_id=39391
http://www.sedo.com/auction/auction_...ction_id=39300
http://www.sedo.com/auction/auction_...ction_id=39123

etc.

However, the other half of the problem remains: we should not have to show where our location is, how long we've been members of Sedo and how long our domains have been listed for sale on Sedo. All this info can still be scraped and the data stored for any lawful or unlawful use, can expose our sales patterns and identify our sales volume and strategies.

All these features should have an ON/OFF switch and be left to our courtesy to enable them.

Perhaps you can accept my free consultation as a service to your company.

[mvl]

Monica, please tell me how I can turn off the activity rating. As mentioned before, this is a misleading rating, suggesting some measure of quality. It has no added value for both seller and buyer and can only hurt deals to be made.

[thevirtual]

Monica, please tell me how I can turn off the activity rating. As mentioned before, this is a misleading rating, suggesting some measure of quality. It has no added value for both seller and buyer and can only hurt deals to be made.

"It has no added value for both seller and buyer and can only hurt deals to be made." This is your opinion but not necessarily true. Some would like to see if a buyer has had past purchases and there amount of sedo use. It can be helpful to have some type of member rating system.

Of course you are free to use another marketplace if you don't like sedo's features.

[mvl]

I disagree with you, because this rating strongly suggests to be a measure of quality while it is not. The use of stars to visualize it all suggest a way of measuring quality, but in fact transaction quantity is measured. I think it is better if the stars were removed and the words "activity index" were replaced with the words "activity volume".

[Acro]

Of course you are free to use another marketplace if you don't like sedo's features.

Your blind support of sedo's decisions astounds me. Two posts ago, Sedo - via Monica's statement - admitted that data was exposed (my own words would be "wide *** gaping hole") and that it has now been fixed. What makes you trust Sedo so blindly when I have been documenting my claims against offering such features without an opt-out feature? If tomorrow Sedo decides to put on your profile the total revenue you've made each year and the list of your buyers would you still think Sedo is doing the right thing?

This is drama in the making.

Meanwhile, I have not received a callback from Sedo. What's the point of leaving a message on the voicemail, Monica?