[Mindi]

If you think of it like a real auction, an electronic tool for sniping is just like having someone bid for you at an auction house. All sorts of people bid at auctions and a lot of people use firms to buy the pieces for them if they can't be at or don't want to go to the auction themselves.

My father-in-law owns a small auction house and trust me, he could care less who is bidding at the last minute or how they are bidding, as long as the price is going up and the bidder is good for the money. Ebay is the same way. If the item is that important to you, you either place your bid for the absolute maximum amount you are willing to pay and they will proxy bid for you, or you are there when the auction is winding up and bid how you see fit. If it's allowed at a regular auction, I don't see why it wouldn't be allowed at online auctions.

The only people who get screwed from sniping is people who put in bids early and assume because no one else is actively bidding against them right then that no one wants the item but them, so they put in a low maximum bid. Truthfully, if you put in the highest amount you want to go and you lose the item to someone else who bids higher in the last seconds (no matter what method) then you would have lost it anyway even if they put in their bid 5 minutes earlier.

So you still wouldn't have gotten the bargain you thought you would have. To think otherwise is only fooling yourself.