The amazon pay-per-click auction works through a system of a sealed-bid second-price auction. This means that everyone puts in a bid without each other knowing. Then for example if I am the top bid and I bid £1.50 and the second person bid £1.00 and the third person £0.75, I would only pay £1.01 and the second person would pay £0.76 and so on. So I would effectively pay slightly more than the person with a lower bid than me, however, I would never need to pay more. The price which I secure in the auction would be the amount I pay Amazon each time someone clicks on my advert.
Wa alaykum salaam,
In this instance, you would be always paying less than your bid, is that correct?
If that is the case, then that is acceptable despite the ambiguity, because you gave consent implicitly to that price through your higher bid.
The Fuqaha and jurists call this التراضي ضمنا
Allah knows best
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Jazkallah khair. That is correct, I will always be paying the same or lower than my bid. You can go for fixed bids but this way I will spend more money. Or you can for dynamic bids and I will be going for the one which reduces my bid. You can go for the one which increases the bid you pay, but I assumed this would be haram.
I should also probably add that the the dynamic bidding, if you want can only increase it by a maximum of 100% (so double the bid price). Is this okay?
Wa alaykum salaam,
This is acceptable in all scenarios. Since it is a maximum of 100%, you are aware of the potential outcome, which reduces the ambiguity to a tolerable level.
And if it is down, it is already acceptable to you as you’ve bid a higher amount.
Allah knows best
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