CL-wannabe-sponsored “research” backfires
Site-scraper seeks to undermine Internet safety by instructing users to ignore safety guidelines
Classified listings scraper/aggregator and CL wannabe Oodle has paid AIM Group to falsely portray craigslist as fraught with criminal activity.
If you strip away the false (and defamatory) paid-for editorial however, and look at the numbers AIM uses, a very different story emerges.
AIM group “documents” 330 crimes that it says occurred in connection with use of CL in the US over a 12 month period. Sounds scary until you compare that number to the 570 million classified ads posted by 100 million or more US craigslist users during that same time span, generating literally BILLIONS of human interactions, many involving face-to-face meetings between users who do not know one another.
AIM Group facetiously writes “we understand thousands or even tens of thousands of transactions happen safely between Craigslist aficionados.”
THOUSANDS??? Shame on you AIM Group (and Oodle). You know better. Try hundreds of millions or billions of safe transactions. How does the self-proclaimed “bible of the classifieds industry” arrive at a range that underestimates the transaction volume of CL by 5 or more orders of magnitude (and declines to correct it) ? Well, when you’re paid to reach false conclusions about crime incidence, you’ve got little choice. If you accurately describe the transaction volume, you then have to admit that the incidence of crime is extremely low, and that’s not what those sponsor dollars were about. As Techdirt has noted, this “research” calls into question AIM Group’s entire value proposition:
As for the actual “research,” it seems laughable, at best, and should immediately raise questions about any AIM Group research. The “research” basically scoured news reports and found a grand total of 330 “crimes” in the past year that have some sort of loose connection to Craigslist. I have a hard time seeing how that makes it a “cesspool” of crime. That’s a very small number, especially considering the hundreds of millions of posts and transactions that take place via Craigslist.
James Temple at the SF Chronicle is reporting that, in terms of crime rate, or incidence of crime, craigslist is roughly 11,000 times safer than the city of Oakland. And as he has now updated, there is no reason to pick on his hometown of Oakland, the 11,000x incidence ratio would likely apply to any major city in the US. The point he is making is not the dangerousness of any given city, but the relative safety of craigslist.
Crime is rare on craigslist in part because criminals know that the electronic trail they leave there helps ensure their capture, and CL is unusually helpful and cooperative with law enforcement. The risk is not zero of course, and common sense precautions are in order when using craigslist, just as you would do at other venues or offline (where risks are arguably higher).
Since few have heard of it, its worth mentioning that Oodle is a classified ad scraper or aggregator, meaning it acquires its listings by scraping them or aggregating them from other sites. In fact we had to send them a cease-and-desist notice when they started scraping listings from craigslist in 2005.
AIM omits to mention craigslist is likely also safer than Oodle in terms of crime rate, or incidence of crime, when you compare the usage between the two sites. Spot checking of categories such as furniture, roommates, collectibles, baby/kid stuff, and bicycles for January showed craigslist having roughly 1000x times Oodle’s listings (and CL listings are posted by its users, not scraped from other sites). Some Oodle categories have more listings, but those are dominated by data feeds from a few large commercial entities.
Compete.com web traffic stats show CL with 550x Oodle’s page views.
Such that if so much as ONE (1) crime was connected with an Oodle listing over the past 12 months, the crime rate for Oodle would exceed by almost two times the crime rate that AIM Group claims for CL.
It’s kind of like comparing Pine Bluff Arkansas (pop 100,000) to the state of California (population 30 million) — yeah, California has far more TOTAL crime, but the INCIDENCE of crime (crimes per 100,000 people) is actually lower in California (522) than in Pine Bluff (946).
But of course, you don’t include such findings or perspective when your “research” is being bought and paid for by a client looking to tar an industry leader whose position it covets and envies.
Not content with defaming craigslist, AIM/Oodle recklessly misadvises that “the old rules — “meet in public;” “always tell someone where you’re going;” “know who you’re dealing with” — often don’t work on Craigslist.” This wildly false and irresponsible guidance is reinforced in a related press release, which says that “the old rules of ‘meeting in public’ and ‘knowing whom you’re dealing with’ no longer apply.”
Kind of like advising motorists that, because accidents are happening despite precautions, that the old rules about “observing speed limits” and “wearing your seat belt” and “don’t drink and drive” no longer apply.
February 24th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
The reason James Temple picks on Oakland is that people in San Francisco love to trot out Oakland as a dangerous lawless cesspool of a city where no one of sane mind would dare walk around alone or at night.
February 24th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
lol you mad bro?
February 24th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
[…] craigslist blog » Blog Archive » Pay-to-Play “Research” from AIM blog.craigslist.org/2011/02/more-pay-to-play-research-from-aim/ – view page – cached Classified listings scraper/aggregator and CL wannabe Oodle has paid AIM Group to falsely portray craigslist as fraught with criminal Show influential only (2) $(’#filter-infonly’).change(function() { var el = $(this); var url = document.location.href; var checked = el.attr(’checked’); if (checked) { document.location.href = url + ((/?/.test(url)) ? ‘&’ : ‘?’) + ‘infonly=1′; } else { document.location.href = url.replace(/[?&]?infonly=1/,”); } }); […]
February 24th, 2011 at 4:11 pm
What really creeps me out is that Oodle can’t possibly be the only one dumping megabucks into stat distortion like this. Kudos to James Temple at the SF Chronicle for exposing it!
February 24th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Yes! I’m glad you publicly and forcefully defended yourself from that garbage “research.”
February 25th, 2011 at 8:09 am
Oodle and AIM, what a bunch of nonsense !!! Shame on AIM for those doctored stats. My wife and I have been online since 1991, met on the internet when that was still tabu in 1996, had eBay accounts in 1998, and were one of the first paypal account holders. Since then we’ve had literally thousands of online transactions ranging from cars, furniture, metal garage building, large appliances, power tools, electronic equipment, computers, to just about everything else that you can imagine … tons and tons of used stuff too since we’re not exactly rich or even close to it. We’ve purchased a total of 9 vehicles online since 1991, easily dozens of computers, as well as our current home.
With a little bit of care and common sense it shouldn’t be too hard not to get burned. Actually, I can’t really think of a single incident of actual internet fraud that we’ve had to deal with since 1991. We plan vacations, business trips, hotel stays, heck even our wedding (back in 2000) on the internet. Sure, there’ve been some regrets and seemingly dishonest companies, but I say seemingly because “the bad” that was pushed on us had more to do with lack of quality or lousy service, as opposed to actual fraud i.e. getting literally ripped off.
If you behave ignorantly on the internet, you’ll end up paying the price, just as you would anywhere else in the real world. The fact that much of the internet is anonymous should make anyone with even a little bit of common sense be more aware of what they’re doing or getting involved with.
February 25th, 2011 at 8:42 am
If it’s defamation, aren’t you going to sue?
If you don’t sue, is it because it’s not defamation? Is there some other reason?
Sorry guys, but in propaganda wars, the only way to find out who won, is in court. Otherwise, you cannot prove your position, and your statements, including here, are for naught. If your position is defensible, then defend it in court. If you have been wronged, then take the matter to court. By taking AIM to court, you have your position fomented with the best credibility available, and set a precendent to prevent others from attacking CL with false propaganda. Otherwise, you have the appearance of merely playing the same game.
February 25th, 2011 at 11:50 am
great response!
February 25th, 2011 at 11:58 am
Oodle?
Never heard of it.
Never going to it.
/discussion
February 25th, 2011 at 12:06 pm
[…] Official Craigslist blog re-iterates pretty much all of my points Share […]
February 25th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
They also conveniently forget to count number of crimes connected to regular paid newspaper classifieds. But who needs facts for good scare piece anyways?
February 25th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
I have hired actors and actresses, been hired to make videos and write articles, and bought and sold various items through Craigslist. In the hiring situations, I was generally dealing with known people who had public websites, and I obviously have one myself.
On the merchandise purchases, they were all local transaction, all oin well-lit, obvious places, for items at reasonable prices.
In other words, all my Craigslist use has been legit, aboveboard, and involved other straight-up (but not necessarily straight people.
February 25th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
great responses.
February 26th, 2011 at 11:04 am
@Mike
You said: “in propaganda wars, the only way to find out who won, is in court. Otherwise, you cannot prove your position, and your statements, including here, are for naught. If your position is defensible, then defend it in court. If you have been wronged, then take the matter to court.”
Sorry, but that’s a load of nonsense. You must be a lawyer who stands to benefit financially from more lawsuits.
The great majority of people think there are far too many lawsuits in this country already.
Craigslist is doing it exactly right.
The best way to convince the public in this day of easy dissemination of both fact and opinion is to state your own case publicly. If you have a good argument, everyone can read and decide for themselves. We don’t need the 3rd-hand process whereby a news reporter tells us what 12 people on a jury decided after they heard lawyers argue– in order to be able to reach our own conclusion about who is right.
February 28th, 2011 at 7:39 am
Way to go Jim. You have stated your position well.
March 7th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
The work of Oodle and the AIM Group smells like eBay paying minions to smear craigslist before the upcoming San Francisco trial.
Remember the AIM Group did many spin pieces for eBay too.
http://aimgroup.com/blog/2010/09/09/split-ruling-tips-in-favor-of-ebay-over-craigslist-suit/
Oodle’s eBay connection.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y10/m01/i07/s02
Oodle to Connect Classifieds Accounts to eBay
“Oodle was founded by former Excite and eBay executives”
March 16th, 2011 at 11:31 am
It’s tough when you’re at the top. Everyone’s out to get you! Once the “girls” started using CL everyone wanted in on criticizing you. That’s life I guess, but you did need to defend against obvious lies about CL. That’s all u can do. Informed people will simply ignore most of the “critics” anyway, so keep on doing the best u can to police your service, like always.
January 24th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Forget comparing Craigslist to Oakland. I bet the statistics would show that Craigslist is safer than church.
January 25th, 2012 at 6:26 am
Jim as per your comment on Mike’s; your right. Besides who has time or money to spend in court?? Meg: You have a very good point. e-bay seams to be playing a little dirty, but I’m not a lawyer.
Remember the old TV ad “An educated consumer is our best customer” ? (I believe it was for a mens clothing retailer.) I think that applies to CL along with some common sense!! HELLO !! I have had nothing but good experiences with CL. My room-mate and I both found this house we rent rooms in over a yr ago, and I have gotten work with local business owners through CL. I happen to appreciate CL’s community service approach to doing business and that it’s not only about PROFITS!! This country needs more people like that running business. I did find a scam on CL (same one I stumbled into yrs ago in a newspaper ad) so I played along, got documentation needed and turned it over to the Post Master. CL: do you have any job openings? Well keep up the good work I use you and only you. P.S. Notice CL has no advertising BS on their site?!
January 26th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
AIM & Oodle should go hide in the corner after that bogus research they did. I have been using Craigslist for over 2 years for my advertising and i have never once had a dangerous encounter with any client i have gotten from Craigslist. The fact that they said Craigslist is a cesspool for crime is laughable, and it is nothing short slander and wrongful accusations.
If there is any site i trust its Craigslist! 100% the best site out there for what it does…. all others is simply a waste of time and effort.
I will stand beside them till the end. Go Craigslist