Kettles and Pots
Although our response to each of Ebay’s unfounded claims will have to wait, it’s worth pointing out that Ebay is suing us for implementing protections for craigslist that it clearly believes are perfectly appropriate for protecting itself, for example:
1. Ebay is suing us for implementing a shareholder rights agreement, which it has called a “poison pill”. Here is a 2004 filing by Ebay regarding an increase in authorized shares, which it reserves the right to use for the purpose of implementing a poison pill:
http://sec.edgar-online.com/2004/05/17/0000950134-04-007721/Section9.asp
2. Ebay is suing us for offering each of our shareholders the opportunity to exchange their shares for an incrementally larger number of shares bound by a “right of first refusal” agreement, whereby shares must be offered to craigslist on the same terms offered to any other potential acquirer. It had previously insisted that craigslist shareholders be bound by a right of refusal agreement, and has from time to time bound shareholders of Ebay and its various subsidiaries by right of first refusal agreements.
3. Ebay is suing craigslist for implementing an indemnification agreement, which calls for craigslist to pay legal fees for craigslist directors and officers should they be sued individually in the course of their duties. Here is a 1998 filing by Ebay regarding a similar indemnification agreement for its own directors and officers;
http://www.secinfo.com/dut49.71xp.7.htm#1stPage
4. Ebay is suing us for implementing staggered board elections. Here is a 1999 filing by Ebay indicating that Ebay itself is no stranger to staggered board elections:
http://sec.edgar-online.com/1999/04/20/16/0001012870-99-001210/Section5.asp
May 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
So, by trying to
a) force ebay out
b) reduce ebay’s stake in craigslist
what are you trying to “protect”?
Why don’t you want ebay having a stake? Or rather, why do you want ebay’s stake back for yourself?
May 1st, 2008 at 3:33 pm
The call of the triumphant Craigbird: “TU QUOQUE! TU QUOQUE!”
May 1st, 2008 at 4:15 pm
@hmm - uh, that would seem obvious. They’re trying to protect their business. From an often hostile competitor. In the same way that competitor protects their own business.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:11 pm
eBay is pure poison - demented and without even the slightest glimmer of humanity. eBay has matured into a hostile entity and burns everything in its path. Any sane individual would do whatever they possibly could to eject the eBay filth from their company. Not only is/will craig’s be affected directly by eBay’s attacks it will also have the unfortunate taint in reputation that eBay has created for themselves and anyone associated. The entire eBay corp is teetering due to eBay’s narrow minded perspective and approach.
They have underestimated the power of their customers and have over estimated the virtues of their customer’s customers. eBay’s revenue is still firmly planted in eBay’s core auction site- PayPal is increasing in revenue, but it is entirely due to the (no joke essential forcing) of their customers on eBay’s auction site to use paypal as the payment method. Shop.com is made of people who also rent space on the auction site. eBay wasn’t able to get their classified BS to go - because they are greedy to the core- so instead of letting it developed (or not) they dumped/banned their auction site digital delivery customers and told them they would have to list their ads on the classified site for 20 dollars a month (this was a decision revealed a FEW DAYS before they ripped these people’s auctions down- ruined their business and caused their children to go hungry, the mortgage to go unpaid, and/or the utilities to be shut off (this is the demonic and accurate picture of eBay’s demonic personality). 90% of the public and eBay users don’t/didn’t even know eBay had a classified. Stumbleupon - has been advantaged by eBay’s auction site customers by encouraging and configuring the system to interact with eBay store sites.
In essence everything eBay is and everything eBay has is a result and continuance of their core business customers. They just trashed everyone - and so many don’t even know yet. Frankly any intelligent shareholder would be dumping that stock now- because by the end of July - eBay isn’t going to be very strong from a share holders point of view.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:53 pm
I’m so glad you make this info public. More people need to know about this situation!
You’ll win this fight. Ebay’s track record speaks for itself…..
May 1st, 2008 at 11:44 pm
“Although our response to each of Ebay’s unfounded claims will have to wait” — not sure how many people are in a hurry for that one; but what’s the delay?
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:09 am
what can we do to help??????
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:13 am
Last I checked you were a private company with only 3 shareholders. You can’t compare that with a publicly listed company where anybody can buy and sell. No matter, it’s now up to a United States court of law to decide.
In my experience as a minority shareholder of a number of small ventures, what you have done here is completely illegal.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:39 am
John, would the board and directors of a publicly listed company not be more restricted in their actions?
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:06 am
eBay is not a good partner to have. Maybe they are trying to force you financially to go public for a takeover? They cannot get you any other way.
eBay will go after anyone for anything. This is being watched closely by many. Thank goodness all our company has to worry about is lies and slander from competitors.
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:05 am
I am a big fan and loved reading about the eBay employee who was getting his resume ready — looking forward to reading more of those and I am sure they are on the way.
business is not just about money.
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:12 am
i’m going to echo what was said above. what can we do to help?
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:13 am
work for ebay, john?
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:29 am
I want to help, too!
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:35 am
To Quote:
hmm Says:
May 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
So, by trying to
a) force ebay out
b) reduce ebay’s stake in craigslist
what are you trying to “protect”?
Why don’t you want ebay having a stake? Or rather, why do you want ebay’s stake back for yourself?
Well turn that on its head. By trying to:
a) Buy out Craigslist
b) Increase eBay’s stake in Craigslist;
What is eBay trying to do? Why don’t they want to remain a minority in CL’s backyard; or rather, why do they want to acquire Craigslist in toto? Which they have of course quite openly stated that they wanted to do; on one hand denigrating its operation and on the other hand implying that it’s so great that they have to have it. Once again missing the entire point, that what makes it special is exactly what they don’t know how to do.
I certainly hope that some antitrust law or another might apply here, since their acquisition attempts are so consistently aimed at any entity that might enjoy even the slightest amount of success; obviously good will and success don’t mean much to them.
go craig!
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:26 am
to answer your questions:
You have to assume Craig Newmark wants to keep his vision and his business alive and his own, which is why CL isn’t for profit and making a killing with all the traffic driven to the site. It’s “for community”. A large, for-profit company like eBay wants them to monetize their traffic. They saw the potential, which is why they threw money at it. They’re a public company and as such, they’re required to exercise their fiduciary duty and make sure their investment benefits their shareholders. i think these aspects are fairly cut and dry.
eBay valued the potential of CL at $5 billion…which is hard to imagine walking away from, but props to Craig for keeping with his values.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:22 am
This is nothing new. eBay has a reputation for coming in with a smile and shaking hands, wanting everyone to be its “friend”. They warch, they wait, they calculate. Then they tear down the existing structure (that works), get rid of everthing that made it popular and attracted positive traffic flow, rebuild it with a corporate hardened shell and hard-fist everyone out that does not have the eBay “search and destroy” mentality.
Ever notice just how many long time eBay member’s, with sales numbering in the tens of thousands, are no longer involved with eBay? eBay has had so many lawsuits launched against it, it isn’t funny (or rather, it is long overdue).
Craigslist was built for the community. It has helped my family and me when we were down and out and needed to sell our vehicle, find the money to refinance our home, find jobs, hire movers, sell stuff to get by, trade vegetable seeds, donate Box Tops for Education, and get free rocks for our garden. eBay denies in a lawsuit that it is an auction site.
Let’s see: Craigslist - “honest and there for the people” versus eBay - “drain their bank account and give no one an opportunity to participate in fair play.” I support Craig.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
[…] help themselves: the Craigslist blog has a post up entitled “Kettles and Pots” which notes that many of the things eBay is accusing Craigslist of doing are things that eBay has either also done […]
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
And so, the astroturfing and trolling begins. Whether they are ebay employees or fans really is not strictly relevant, unless proof is brought forward.
I fully expect eBay to use every dirty trick in the book. eBay is a faceless corporation, with a lot of money, but the battle does not always go to the richest, strongest or fastest.
Craigslist tends to deal with things in an open and transparent manner. This policy has already proven the better course in previous legal disputes, such as the equal housing dispute.
I expect that once the *facts* (remember, courts like these!) are known, I am pretty confident that CL will prevail. This whole thing feels and looks like it is nothing more than an annoyance suit.
The corpse that eBay calls it’s company is starting to see even more competition. CL is just the tip of it. Seriously funded competitors are starting to hit the playing field, Wigix is a good example.
Ignore the trolls, laugh at the astro-turfing. Let’s enjoy watching eBay try to explain why this suit isint harassment.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
eBay is an evil, arrogant and monopolistic entity that will stop at nothing to perpetuate eBay.
eBay corralled PayPal, and now uses them to help in it’s efforts to dominate online commerce, everywhere.
The deceitful, dangerous, questionably legal and increasingly menacing antics of the terrible duo of eBay-PayPal needs to be reined in.
Donahoe and his gang must be stopped. The angst, anger, and ill will generated by these people is widespread. eBay and PayPal are absolutely out of control.
My best wishes are with Craigslist. Ill regards to eBay and PayPal.
-sciencefare
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
As a private company Craiglist is not bound by the same rules/laws as a public company, correct? Or is it because the minority interest is a public company? (my knowledge of corporate law is decidedly limited) In response to John’s comments, I don’t see how CL did anything illegal - a private company has the right to protect itself from hostile takeovers. Poison pills may anger people but they seem to be legal.
Ebay is moving toward a hostile takeover and this is just disgusting. Like the others, I wish there were something I could do to help.
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
3rd Ave-
You are correct that your understanding of corporate affairs is limited- you claim that Ebay “is moving towards a hostile takeover”, but you obviously don’t understand how they work- in order for a hostile takeover to occur, the bidder (in this case Ebay) must either purchase enough stock to get a controlling interest (usually by offering well above market value for shares to entice shareholders to sell), or the bidder must convince enough shareholders to vote out the management that is resisting the acquisition.
Unlike the vast majority of corporations, in this case there are only three shareholders TOTAL, and two of them are Craig and Jim, who also comprise the board of directors in its entirety…neither is going to voluntarily sell their controlling interest in the company to Ebay, and neither is going to vote themselves out of their board positions so that they lose control of the company.
If the stock were traded publicly and/or there were enough shareholders to band together and vote out the current board of directors or sell off their stock to someone who could then gain a controlling interest, then a hostile takeover might be a possibility…but as it stands, it can’t happen without CL allowing it to….it is a total non-issue.
obviously CL wants people’s hatred of Ebay to make them *think* that this is a hostile takeover bid and, are trying to spin it that way without actually coming out and accusing them- but Ebay’s simply saying “we like owning part of the company and would like to buy the rest of it if and when you sell it” is NOT a hostile takeover attempt by any stretch of the imagination.
CL may be a private company, but they still have a duty to protect the interests of *all* shareholders and deal with them in good faith…that is the crux of the matter here- C&J are evidently operating under the premise that that responsibility vanished when Ebay allegedly went into competition with them…it is entirely possible that Ebay breached their end of that deal, but that they still have rights as a shareholder that were not automatically rescinded when the alleged breach occurred, and that those rights have subsequently been violated.
We shall see.
BTW, I suggest you read up on corporate takeovers to get a more balanced idea of what they are all about- contrary to popular opinion, in companies with many stockholders “hostile” takeovers are often quite beneficial when the stockholders’ interests are not being considered or protected by intransigent management who are running a company into the ground and wiping out people’s investments…they can be a very positive thing and by no means are all the result of evil greedy corporate tyrants, not by a longshot.
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
As a small money man, I buy and sell many things. I tried EBAY once and will never use them again. PayPal is a joke not worth telling.
Although I have purchased over $135,000 services and products thru the craigslist community, I would not even spend one dime on EBAY.
I believe in making money (legally and morally) and will continue to use CL, but if there should ever be a small chance in hell that EBAY got there hands on CL. I would go some place else.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
[…] response isn’t all that convincing. At best, it highlights a few points in the lawsuit and claims “but eBay did the same thing!” But, that’s not at all accurate, unfortunately. eBay isn’t suing Craigslist because it has a poison […]
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Anyone find it interesting that few, if any, of the pro-Ebay commenters here take responsibility for their words (the pro-Craigslist folks seem to transparently link to their sites and such)? I’m Adam Lasnik, and I’m proud to voice support for Craigslist here… and put my name to it.
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:17 am
As a retired attorney, with a specialty in contract law, I fail to see how Ebay can do anything, as a minority shareholder, to Craig’s list. This does not mean that they will not try. You have all heard the saying about throwing enough crap at the wall and see what sticks. Ebay is using it’s money to try to do this here. In a court of law, they would have no standing, assuming that the issues brought up (poison pill, etc) were properly voted on in a proper meeting at the proper time and place and properly recorded. One mistake that a lot of private corporations make is to not keep explicit corporate records, because most of the time there are only a couple of people involved and they are family or friends.
Keep up the good work, guys and more power to you
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:46 am
I can’t wait to see how this unfolds. Good luck CL.
http://www.RNGD.net
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
I read through all these comments. Someone mentioned Wigix as a competitor to Ebay.. I was praying for some competition to ebay every day for the past decade. Anyway, I am doing my part and registering at http://www.wigix.com . Lets give Ebay competitors some support.
I love Craiglist and its founder. Kudos and Salutes to you Craig.
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
CRAIGSLIST….MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU…..EBAY MAY YOU BURN IN HELL !
May 4th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Mr Baldwin: Even though you may fail to see how eBay ca do anything, they have the money to make it very uncomfortable. Look at perfumebay. They were a legit company who got screwed by ebay for no good reason.
I hope CL stands up to eBay.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:56 am
[…] company. In a post titled “Kettles and Pots,” Craigslist chief executive Jim Buckmaster responds that “eBay is suing us for implementing protections for Craigslist that it clearly believes […]
May 5th, 2008 at 2:49 am
Craigslist is highly regarded in my profession.
I find CL is more about people and what they do,
as opposed to what people have or what you can get them to do.
From my perspective, CL has the moral high ground on these issues.
One would hope that is enough for them to prevail.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Last I checked, hypocrisy is not a valid legal defense.
People like craigslist because it is free. There would be no “community” to protect if it wasn’t free. How’s that for greed?
Let’s not forget that the craigslist founders took a lot of cash from eBay in the past. They have made so much money since then (from paid listings) that they would now like to buy that stake back because they are pissed that eBay launched a competitor.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
It is interesting to note the extreme black/white polarity in thinking by the majority of the posters supporting CL in this forum…
I’m not pro- either company; I personally think that both have serious issues with how they run things on a basic business level, and they also both provide services that enough people want to keep them both in business.
But I resent the implication that anyone who doesn’t slavishly accept the idea that CL could not *possibly* be in the wrong here by default MUST be “pro Ebay” or engaging in “trolling and astroturfing”…
Some of us are simply pro-holding people to contractual and corporate obligations, and are able to address this one particular case without dragging in a bunch of animosity and prejudice over other matters that have absolutely nothing to do with this one.
The overriding “logic” in the vast majority of the comments here seems to be: I hate Ebay because I don’t like their business practices that have nothing to do with CL, therefore CL did nothing wrong”.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Nice try at diplomatic astroturfing, prndl, but anybody who’s been around long enough to see what eBay has done to its competitors in the past can smell a rat.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
From what I understand, the issue of the lawsuit stems from eBay launching a competing website called kijiji.com (another free classifieds site). I’ve read on other news sites that eBay’s investment agreement with Criagslist included verbiage that protected Craigslist from such competition. Craigslist’s “restructuring” of eBay’s shares is a direct result of kijiji.com.
eBay wants to have their cake and eat it too with this kijiji.com bullshizz. No dice. I just hope the verbiage was worded strongly enough to protect CL in this intance.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
That’s pretty much it, Andrew…
But it remains to be seen if any alleged breach by Ebay absolves CL of the fiduciary duties that Ebay is claiming that CL breached…it may be part of the contractual terms, but not all contractual terms are always enforceable, especially if they are counter to the law, which happens all the time and is why courts adjudicate contract disputes.
And it is a common mistake for people tied to contractual obligations to assume that bad faith dealings by one party automatically renders the other party completetely free and clear of the contractual obligations when it may not.
May 6th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I fail to feel sorry for eBay at all. I think the company is run by crooks that have absolutely no moral fiber and will resort to any low way to get what they want, even if real people are hurt, They simply do not care and caring is impostatnt.
Success is nothing if you only have half.
Money + no soul = failure
Money + soul = success.
I’m definitely 100% behind Craigslist and wish only the best for them.
eBay is rotten to the core now. It only took Donohoe and his tribe two months to finally do eBay in. I accuse eBay of violating laws and human rights. I hope a reckoning day comes sooner rather than later. I wish eBay is found guilty and that they get what they deserve.
Good Luck and God Bless to Craigslist!
eBay bloggers writing here…Go Home! All of you have no idea what you’re talking about and you won’t find credibility anywhere, You’re Done! Bye~
May 7th, 2008 at 8:27 am
this is all news to me - i thought ebay owned craigslist. I didn’t realize that they just owned a minority stake.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
After reading the actual complaint: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ebay/226550478×0x192471/5a92c5ee-98c3-4a85-a507-0ecd8c81e41b/eBay_LetterwithPublicRedactedVerifiedComplaint.pdf it seems pretty clear to me that ebay is not suing for craigslist implementing protections, but more over they are suing because 2 of the 3 shareholders implemented all these changes without any notification or input of the third shareholder, who may have had rights to challenge these changes had they been properly notified. very sneaky.
Also it should be noted that it looks like they are only requesting that the ‘protections’ CL implemented with some shenanigans be reversed. At which time CL could then readdress at a board meeting WITH there 3rd shareholders input/knowledge this time around.
I Highly encourage anyone that has an opinion one way or the other on this topic to read this document.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
A few near random thoughts
Craigslist is a for-profit venture which makes money by charging for advertisements in a few categories (real estate and job postings) in a few large markets. The company makes a comfortable income from the paid advertising and as a matter of goodwill it allows the large amount of free advertising in all categories in smaller markets and almost all categories in the large markets that attract the devoted Craigslist users.
Ebay is a publicly owned company that seeks to maintain and increase its share value by seeking every nickel and dime it can from anywhere they can be found. I wish somebody would take Ebay private and be content to milk the core auction business of the huge amount of money it spins off without all the shenanigans it pulls to empty more money from customers’ pockets. However, that’s unlikely and as a shareholder of Craigslist, it does have the right to try to maximize the value of its CL holdings. It’s too bad they’re just nasty about it.
Craigslist has lots of eyeballs and Ebay and lots of others would like to fully monetize CL by placing advertising all over the site, charging fees for using many more categories and selling user information to name but a few methods. The CL founders have avoided that route because they are nice guys and seem to believe that not everything has to have a price tag attached to it. I hope that Craig and Jim can buck the tide and keep their vision in place.
If Ebay were to prevail (which I consider unlikely), then I suspect that Craig and Jim could walk away from CL with their team and have 80% or more of users and revenue within 18 months and Ebay would have an almost worthless shell of a company.
While Craig and Jim are relatively young, someday they may want to pursue other interests and cashing out might appeal to one or both of them. Perhaps the Craigslist foundation could take over and perpetuate the Craigslist we have come to love.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Ebay poisons everything they touch. They suck the life out of anything worth experiencing all in the pursuit of the ebay brand. Meg Whitman decided that “China is our number 1 priority”, her and those there are hellbent at driving independent sellers out of business, but only to keep them on in order to generate enough variety as ebay DEEMS fit. You cannot compete with sellers who are the manufacturers you wholesale from. Plus the currency exchange, you will never win. I think ebay wants CL because they want to seal up any outlets for us small potatoes
May 8th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Adam Lasnik, above, writes: “Anyone find it interesting that few, if any, of the pro-Ebay commenters here take responsibility for their words (the pro-Craigslist folks seem to transparently link to their sites and such)?”
Could it be that the pro-eBay commenters are merely sockpuppets? (…note in particular the stylistic similarities between the comments by prndl and John). Could it be that the pro-eBay commenters are party to the lawsuit, on the eBay side? (…it would be very interesting to look at the IP addresses of the pro-eBay commenters).
Just thinking out loud, as someone who has dealt with sockpuppets and such on my own blog.
Aside from that, remember not to feed the trolls….
May 8th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
kijiji and ebay are unusable messes. cl is usable.
suppose that ebay (or similar AW) “successfully” smokes cl.
apparently cl can operate from (some) job ads fees, so a new “cl” can startup doing the same.
before cl, there was classifieds2000, yahoo, and some other straight ad sites. their only flaw was lack of spamflagging. they were killed off most likely because they were (otherwise) too good (albertson’s buying lucky’s, etc-standard business history).
cl then replaced the straight ad sites.
more recently, kijiji and similar uncompetitive sites have appeared, but lack effective spam/scam control, lack ads, and lack usability. [same is true of usenet forsale]
regarding possible cl & ebay legal/financial shenanigans, I have too little interest to spend time researching these. but (in general), “American” culture reveres immorality. the courts may like facts, but they often apply facts within political expectations of US culture.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Power to the people and to hell with ebay and their offensive litigation
May 12th, 2008 at 3:31 am
today’s article in the new york times is surprisingly good!
May 12th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
it’s clear to me the Ebay is a disgusting, GREEDY corporation that wants Craigslist.
When I see or read about Mr. Newmark standing up to it, that’s encouraging.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:50 am
My life is going on CL too, for 4 yrs with CL community ,my job, my place ,car…all from CL, I will stand behind Craig and his idea.
I even want to pay some fee for his company with the ad to gain more profit, but I don’t like to see Ebay to get the big piece of cake from thier sweat.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Stomp that slime ball eBag. eBay the most low life outfit in world.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Boycott Ebay! What a bunch of losers to try and hijack this grassroots business. I am unconventional and respect and even admire the way craigslist hasn’t wrung every ounce of money out of it’s users by charging for every thing they do. This is how commerce should be everywhere, but companies like ebay have to get greedy and don’t know when to quit. They think too highly of themselves. If they aren’t careful, they’ll end up like yahoo v/s microsoft. How the mighty shall fall.
Thank you craigslist for providing such a wonderful well managed service to the masses and for staying humble and keepin’ it real.
May 17th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Craigslist, YOU MUST READ THIS! Please start a page so that people can sign their names to to it that would faithfully quit Ebay in a heartbeat if you were to start an auction site & switch over to you. I’m sure it would have hundreds of thousands of signatures in a very short time. Maybe than it would open your eyes to do something about this! Ebay is the SLIME of the world and needs to disappear forever and just go down in the history books as a very large Corp. that just happened to come along in a very perfect time, but due to there GREED & power hungry attitude, LOST IT ALL!! I’m a current Ebay Power seller and I just cant take there bullshit any longer,but i have no choice other than to stay with them!