Auction software is

application software Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

, that can either be deployed on a

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

, on a

web server A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initiate ...

or as a

smart contract A smart contract is a computer program or a transaction protocol that is intended to automatically execute, control or document events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement. The objectives of smart contracts are the re ...

on a blockchain virtual machine. This software is used by auctioneers and participants of

online auction An online auction (also electronic auction, e-auction, virtual auction, or eAuction) is an auction held over the internet and accessed by internet connected devices. Similar to in-person auctions, online auctions come in a variety of types, with d ...

s such as

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

. Smart contracts replace an auctioneer's server, if the auctioneer is not trusted. Online Auction companies have opened up their applications to third party application developers to extend the capabilities and increase revenue. API interfaces were developed using

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

which enable third party developers to build applications that use the back-end of the online auction.

Economic experiments

Economists use special software to study human behavior in auctions by running auctions in a lab. There are diverse software tools for laboratory economic experiments, which allow fast programming of auctions. For instance, z-Tree programming language allows programming an experimental double auction in less than a day. This practise led to appearance of multiple scientific publications exposing results for generalized second price auctions, Dutch auctions, all-pay auctions and other auction types.

Auction websites

Auction websites reside in three categories according to the business model. These are B2B (Business to Business), B2C (Business to Customer), and C2C (Customer to Customer).

website serves all three business models.

SAP Ariba SAP Ariba is an American software and information technology services company located in Palo Alto, California. It was acquired by German software maker SAP SE for $4.3 billion in 2012. Company beginnings Ariba (now SAP Ariba) was founded in ...

website is dedicated to B2B. Ariba patented its auction software technology and won a case worth over $6M against

Emptoris Emptoris is a brand within IBM's Commerce Portfolio. History Late 1999 Avner Schneur founded Emptoris with a goal to transform the strategic sourcing. When acquired by IBM, Emptoris was a developer and provider of strategic supply and contra ...

Inc. in 2009.

Smart-contract based auction

Blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

s with

Ethereum Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (Abbreviation: ETH; sign: Ξ) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capita ...

functionality allow definition, execution and enforcement of auctions between untrusted parties without the involvement of a trusted third party. A smart contract is code that is executed on top of the blockchain. Blockchain auction ensure transparency and prevent cheating by auctioneers and

collusion Collusion is a deceitful agreement or secret cooperation between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal right. Collusion is not always considered illegal. It can be used to att ...

by bidders.

Auction sniping software

Auction sniping Auction sniping (also called bid sniping) is the practice, in a timed online auction, of placing a bid likely to exceed the current highest bid (which may be hidden) as late as possible—usually seconds before the end of the auction—giving o ...

can be done by software on the bidder's computer, or by an online sniping service. eBay Germany banned ''automated'' sniping services in 2002, but the ban was declared illegal by

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

's County Court, and revoked.

General game playing

General game playing General game playing (GGP) is the design of artificial intelligence programs to be able to play more than one game successfully. For many games like chess, computers are programmed to play these games using a specially designed algorithm, which ca ...

was also proposed for

trading Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exchan ...

agents in

supply chain management In commerce, supply chain management (SCM) is the management of the flow of goods and services including all processes that transform raw materials into final products between businesses and locations. This can include the movement and stor ...

thereunder price negotiation in online auctions from 2003 on. Hereby, an auction can be described in a

game description language Game Description Language, or GDL, is a logic programming language designed by Michael Genesereth for general game playing, as part of the General Game Playing Project at Stanford University. GDL describes the state of a game as a series of facts, ...

References

External links

Online Auction Research Report (1999)
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