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Near-optimal online auctions

Avrim Blum,Jason D. Hartline

2005 · DOI: 10.1145/1080000/1070597
ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms · 145 Citations

TLDR

An auction is given that achieves a constant factor of the optimal profit less an O(h) additive loss term, where h is the value of the highest bid, and this auction does not require foreknowledge of the range of bidders' valuations.