Online Auctions

Introduction
Auctions are a commonly used tool for selling goods in cases where a true market does not exist. In the typical case multiple buyers aim to buy some good from a single seller, and the seller wishes to sell the good for the highest possible price. Many types of auction mechanisms have been considered in the literature.

Online auctions can be categorized as a subject studied in Game Theory, and as such it is a branch of applied mathematics that is studied both in social sciences, such as Economics, and in exact sciences, such as Computer Science.
Online auctions from computer scientists point of view is an online computation that must produce a sequence of decisions which are made based on past events without secure information about the future.
Such computation is usually referred to as online algorithm.

In this text the basic properties of auction theory and specific online auction models and their properties are described.
Intro to Online Auctions