>If this were an in-person art auction, and I noticed that Nathan
>Myrvold (just to pick a random wealthy and famous person arbitrarily)
>was really keen to get an item that I wanted, would it be unethical for
>me to avoid bidding on it?
>
>If I saw Nathan Myrvold before the auction and asked him if he was
>going to bid on the item, would that be unethical?
Or, as I did at an in person auction once... I wanted a pair of power
bricks out of an assortment lot of cables and junk... another guy and I
started to bid back and forth, so I flat out asked at him what he wanted
from the lot. He was after a set of cables. So we agreed to stop bidding
against each other, and split the cost that we had run it up to. Then we
each took the items we wanted out of the lot (and actually recouped part
of the cost later as someone else approached us and asked about some of
the other items in the lot).
The auctioneer was none too happy, but like Eric said, ethics isn't about
being sure the seller gets the highest price.
-chris
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Received on Fri Feb 11 2005 - 21:57:56 GMT