craigslist blog

Navigational searches on Yahoo for “www.craigslist.org” or “craigslist.org” have been bringing up eBay textads featuring hyperlinked craigslist URLs, designed to confuse and misdirect users seeking craigslist onto eBay sites. Here is a link to a screen shot of one such search taken this morning, and an image of the text ad itself:

We’ve tried to give eBay the benefit of doubt, but it’s hard to reconcile deceptive, trademark-infringing ads calculated to harm craigslist and its users with statements like this one from eBay yesterday:

“eBay has, and will continue to be, a minority shareholder who believes in Craigslist, shares its values and acts with openness, honesty and integrity in its dealings with Craigslist’s board and the online community.

In fact, these ads suggest that they do not share our values at all, and that they are being anything but open and honest with the online community

UPDATE - Looks like these ads have been withdrawn! Ceasing unlawful behavior out of fear of legal consequences falls short of “openness, honesty, and integrity”, but it’s a step in the right direction.

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.

On several occasions over the last month, a large, tacky Monster.com truck has parked in front of our SF office, and proceeded to blast loud music, to the point where our front offices were rendered unfit for working. On the latest occasion, a few of our techies asked the driver to turn down the music, which he was nice enough to do.

He actually turned out to be a sterling fellow, who clearly felt bad about what he’d been asked to do. He was good enough to allow us to photocopy his marching orders (that’s him holding the fax in photo), which are excerpted below:

“For San Francisco the concept is that we want to make sure this address is on the loop drivers take and if they can be close by during the morning commute, lunch time (noon thru 2) and 5pm-6pm, that would be ideal. For the rest of the time, please drive through high-pedestrian traffic city locations. If you can get a picture of the truck parked in front of the Craigslist address, that would be great.”

Is it possible that Monster is “green” with envy, now that our job boards alone receive more employment-related traffic than all of monster.com?