The final pixels on the Million Dollar Home Page were sold for a mere $38,100. Though that’s an awful lot of dough for an eensy-weensy ad, it’s not even close to the $160K that the bidding had risen to. I guess even pre-vetting the bidders still couldn’t catch all the frauds.

Alex has an interesting idea for high-profile auctions such as this one. Bidders should be required to put down a deposit — a significant chunk of change that they lose if they ever retract a bid. The losers get refunds at the end of the auction, and the winner’s deposit gets subtracted from the purchase price. I’d link to Alex’s post on the topic, but the million dollar home page is down at the moment. Perhaps Alex should take his million bucks and find a better webhost.