Robust double auction protocol against false-name bids

Abstract

Internet auctions have become an integral part of electronic commerce (EC) and a promising field for applying agent technologies. Although the Internet provides an excellent infrastructure for large-scale auctions, we must consider the possibility of a new type of cheating, i.e., a bidder trying to profit from submitting several bids under fictitious names (false-name bids). Double auctions are an important subclass of auction protocols that permit multiple buyers and sellers to bid to exchange a good, and have been widely used in stock, bond, and foreign exchange markets. If there exists no false-name bid, a double auction protocol called PMD protocol has proven to be dominant-strategy incentive compatible. On the other hand, if we consider the possibility of false-name bids, the PMD protocol is no longer dominant-strategy incentive compatible. We develop a new double auction protocol called the Threshold Price Double auction (TPD) protocol, which is dominant strategy incentive compatible even if participants can submit false-name bids. The characteristics of the TPD protocol is that the number of trades and prices of exchange are controlled by the threshold price. Simulation results show that this protocol can achieve a social surplus that is very close to being Pareto efficient.