What do you guys think of the new Pool.com 2 phase auction system?
 

To me it seems like another way to make domains even more expensive:

Pool.com is pleased to announce exciting new innovations to our Deleting Domains services. These changes will bring greater customer privacy to our auction system, as well as remove most of the last minute scrambling that occurs as auctions close.

Effective August 20th, 2004, Pool.com will be launching a new auction system for its Deleting Domains service. All domains that Pool.com secures as of Friday August 20th will go into our new 2-Phase Auction System. As always, placing a backorder on a domain is free and without risk. If Pool.com secures the domain, it will enter our new auction process detailed below.

Here's how it works:

Phase I: Sealed Bid Auction (3 days)

Once we have secured one of your backordered domains, you will be entered in Phase I of our Auction System: the Sealed Bid Auction. As always, only those customers who backordered the domain prior to our obtaining it are eligible to participate in the auction.
We respect your privacy. All bids are confidential during this phase. You may enter or increase your bid at anytime during the 3-day auction.
Entering a sealed bid is done through the same interface you use to bid now. From the Deleting Domains tab and the Auctions link, simply click on the domain you want to place a Sealed Bid on, enter your Sealed Bid, and click on Bid Now. (Note: Your Sealed Bid is your actual bid, not a proxy bid.)
All Phase I auctions close at 3:45 pm GMT (11:45 am EST) the third day following acquisition of the domain name. If you have placed a bid within 20% of the highest Sealed Bid, or you are one of the top two bidders, you will progress to Phase II: the Challenger Auction. As bids can be placed anytime during these three days, there is no longer any need to beat the last minute rush, nor to monitor the auction as the auction closes in this phase.
The interface for obtaining a list of your domains, and our email notifications, will remain very similar to our current system.
* * * * * *

Phase II: Challenger Auction (1 day)

Soon after Phase I completes, a 1-day closed auction will start with only the top bidders.
The highest Sealed Bid from Phase I will be the starting price for the Challenger Auction. The bidder with the highest sealed bid will automatically have that bid set as the initial bid in the Challenger auction.
The Challenger auction uses the existing auction system, which utilizes Proxy bidding. Enter your Maximum Bid at anytime during the Challenger phase.
This phase of the auction is to provide a chance for serious bidders to compete for the domain.
The winner of the Challenger Auction will be awarded the domain.

Yea I agree with you.

Been posted...we all agree, it sucks!

Sorry, I would have searched if I could have.

Most all systems are a joke and getting funnier by the day.

here's registrar sales system scenario.

"hi moron, come bid $50.00 for us to waste our resources (which we are really using for ourselves in the background cept for "2nd level less worthy domains" after the initial 5 minute war is over at 11am. Then when we secure the domain with your hard earned $50.00 it's time for us to take the domain to the cleaners. We can't sell domain's for 6.99 straight up, so lets make em seem worthy and auction em for 100-500 now that we know we have a huge profit already." because somone else just happened to bid on that domain. PFFT yeah their ghost script.

if these domain buyers had a clue, they'd look at how little it costs today to become an "accredited registrar"

I think when Dotster filed for theirs it was some ridiculous $150,000 up front fee's

now i think its like only $5.000. And $2500 yearly .com license all others are like $500 year from there

Just open your own registrar if you are going to do this, then you get your own dedicated connection with just as much chance to get domains as any other accredited registrar.

Just driving the prices up :2 cents:

Have the prices really gone down that much? Don't you still have to put 100k up as security?

Definitly fucking stupid ... A lot of small players are out of the domain dropping business now