A Software Tool for Collecting Data from Online Auctions

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
File version

Accepted Manuscript (AM)

Author(s)
Balingit, Rodel
Trevathan, Jarrod
Lee, Yong Jin
Read, Wayne
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
2009
Size
File type(s)
Location

Las Vegas, U

License
Abstract

Online auctions are increasingly becoming the platform of choice for dubious sellers to engage anonymously in fraudulent behaviour. While researchers are noble in their efforts to devise mechanisms to counter auction fraud, they are often frustrated by the lack of available auction data. Such data is an invaluable tool to gain insight about fraudulent traits and for testing proposed security remedies. This is compounded by online auction sources being non-cooperative in providing auction data, usually citing "security and privacy'' as reasons for not wanting to help. This paper presents a software tool that can extract data from various online auction sources. The system is able to collect all the data for a given search criteria on auctions that have completed, and also returns later to collect the data from ongoing auctions once they have completed (without user intervention). We share our experiences from the development process and describe the challenges that must be overcome to successfully set up such a system. The data collected is used to analyse the behaviour and bidding patterns of sellers and buyers that are engaged in online auctions. The work presented in this paper represents the first serious attempt at creating an openly available software tool and establishing a repository of online auction data that will be free for use by other researchers.

Journal Title
Conference Title

2009 Sixth International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations

Book Title
Edition
Volume
Issue
Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement

© 2009 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

Item Access Status
Note
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject

Science & Technology

Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science, Information Systems

Computer Science, Software Engineering

Persistent link to this record
Citation

Balingit, R; Trevathan, J; Lee, YJ; Read, W, A Software Tool for Collecting Data from Online Auctions, PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2009 Sixth International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations, 2009, pp. 922-927