False-name-proofness with bid withdrawal

We study a more powerful variant of false-name manipulation in Internet auctions: an agent can submit multiple false-name bids, but then, once the allocation and payments have been decided, withdraw some of her false-name identities (have some of her falsename identities refuse to pay). While these withdrawn identities will not obtain the items they won, their initial presence may have been beneficial to the agent's other identities. We define a mechanism to be false-name-proof with withdrawal (FNPW) if the aforementioned manipulation is never beneficial. FNPW is a stronger condition than false-name-proofness (FNP). We first give a necessary and sufficient condition on the type space for the VCG mechanism to be FNPW. We then characterize both the payment rules and the allocation rules of FNPW mechanisms in general combinatorial auctions. Based on the characterization of the payment rules, we derive a condition that is sufficient for a mechanism to be FNPW. We also propose the max...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: ATAL
• Authors: Mingyu Guo, Vincent Conitzer
• Keywords: ATAL 2010, Fnpw Mechanisms, Identities, Intelligent Agents, Payment Rules