craigslist blog

ConsumerAffairs.com has a nice story today, covering our answer to the Connecticut Attorney General’s recent defamatory remarks regarding craigslist, here is an excerpt:

Craigslist is on absolutely solid ground and should be given an award instead of being threatened by political officeholders who are paid to know better,” said ConsumerAffairs.com President James R. Hood. “Craigslist provides an invaluable public service at no cost to the vast majority of its users, which is a lot more than the State of Connecticut can say.”

“Throughout the land, corporate interests and reckless politicians are trying to subvert the First Amendment rights of American citizens by stifling free expression on the Internet while the large media companies who should manning the barricades sit idly by,” he said.

“Internet sites provide a means for citizens to speak freely, providing an important and Constitutionally-protected balance to the constant barrage of corporate propaganda and government hogwash,” Hood said. “Those paid by the public to uphold the Constitution should do their jobs instead of putting the iron boot of the state where it doesn’t belong.”

Presumably the hay bales in background serve as biofuel

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/phx/578467547.html

I’m getting some well-deserved flak for a ham-handed cease-and-desist email I sent to a blogger recently. The dialogue had remained cordial until he revealed his business model - running deceptive textads such as the ones below, which got on my nerves:

He pulled the ads before sharing his story (and my emails) with the press, but not before we’d taken some screenshots. When it comes to following up with Ebay, Livedeal, TableForSix, I should probably leave the C&Ds to the professionals.

Fwiw, we have no interest in shutting down blogs about craigslist, critical or otherwise, and have never tried to do so. But in the strange world of trademarks and copyright, it’s poor practice to allow a confusingly similar domain or business name to go unchallenged. Given all the inquiries we’d gotten from reporters thinking this blogger was associated with craigslist, taken together with the deceptive textads and disrespect for our trademark and terms of use, we felt we had to act.

But there was no need for me to act like a jerk, provoked or not.

The Connecticut Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, recently denounced craigslist to members of the media, for what he alleged were shortcomings in the “erotic services” section of craigslist for areas of Connecticut.

We were disappointed that he chose to ignore our recent progress in dramatically improving compliance with our terms of use, shocked at the bizarre assertion that we are “stonewalling”, and frankly stunned to hear craigslist recklessly slandered as “profiting from prostitution“.

We welcome feedback from any and all interested parties as to how we can improve, but craigslist will not be used as a punching bag for false and defamatory statements.

Unlike the telephone yellow pages, many newspapers, and countless websites, which for many years have profited from “erotic service” ads, craigslist derives no revenue (let alone profit) from “erotic services”, and in fact we incur significant costs in enforcing our terms of use regarding these ads.

Connecticut craigslist users are no doubt curious as to why their AG is spending time attacking freedom of speech and law-abiding companies that provide much-needed free services to the people of Connecticut, when there is so much actual crime left unaddressed. We don’t have the answer, but would be interested to know what it is.

Kudos to law enforcement in southern Oregon for arresting the perpetrators behind this outrage.

Covering your tracks by posting on craigslist has about as much chance of success as pinning your name and number to door of the local police precinct.

Criminals take a giant risk when they use craigslist in conjunction with illegal activity, since an electronic trail is created that law enforcement officers can easily follow.