Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

baligu.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 209 posts

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#161

Post by hnriot »

nathan_long wrote: post #130
paulgb wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it functions well. I'm guessing you've never had to find an apartment on Craigslist. Sifting through spam, scams, fake listings by agents, listings that have already been sold... sure, you can do it, but it's not efficient.

Or a car. Try searching for one of three brands you like within a specified range prices and years, excluding vehicles that have salvage titles, sorted by how close the seller is to you.

The query syntax for CL is reasonably sophisticated, it supports phrase match, grouping and it's possible to specify to specify a price range, using minAsk and maxAsk, you can also specify exclusion terms.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#162

Post by jetti »

jeremymims wrote: post #103
crazygringo wrote: post #81

I'm always fascinated when companies make that one decision which seems to lead to their downfall -- and everyone seems to be able to see it, except the company itself. I think this is a great thing -- if Craigslist can get enough bad press from this, then maybe a movement for "free and copyable" classifieds listings can take place, and there can be competition in the space again.

Craigslist could: - kill Padmapper instantly by building a map function to view their listings. - elect not to build a map feature because they think it's trivial and they believe no one cares. So Padmapper should languish. - buy Padmapper for a little bit of money and have Eric help make their product better. - hire Eric to make their product better. - invest a little money into Padmapper as a hedge and hope it does…

"Craig Newmark is a lazy monopolist at this point. All profit taking, no innovation."

This argument is way overblown. If you ask most companies for the data they generate, they would say no. So singling out Craigslist and using that as an argument as to why Craig is a "jerk" is silly because he would be in good company if that were the case.

Bottom line is that CL isn't a hard site to reproduce and even do it in a better fashion. The moment that other sites can start using CL data is the moment that the CL stranglehold will slip. Currently, others can build a product and then fight for users to come. If they were able to use CL data they would eliminate the chicken and egg problem and can slowly get their own data 'til they wouldn't need CL data. How is that in CL's interest to let that happen?

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#165

Post by ralfn »

zopa wrote: post #70
ralfn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright. That sounds very anti competitive. And if they truly have a monopoly likely illegal as well. I really wish, we had proper laws to deal with all these vendor lockin tricks. Its as if the free market, without proper regulation just ends up promoting innovation in loopholes that give an unfair advantage. Everyone wants to be a cable company these days, and be selling access to customers. Instead of contributing…

It's not really anti-competitive, and it's very unlikely to be illegal. It's just a fairly classic natural monopoly. There's only likely to be one major classified ad company, because advertisers want to use the site with the most users, and users want to use the site with the most classified ads. That's hard for a competitor to break into, not because of anticompetitive behavior by Craigslist, but because of the nat…

Is it not abuse of your monopoly if you demand that their suppliers do not supply competitors?

Because thats essentially what this "exclusive" liscence entails?

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#166

Post by Zimahl »

jonny_eh wrote: post #159
Zimahl wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if I wrote a piece of software that helped you post the same thing simultaneously on Craigslist and EBay, I bet they'd sue me. That's not what this is about. CL doesn't care where you post it, or how many times you post it. CL just doesn't want others scraping their website and posting it for you. This is direct action on CL against Padmapper.

How will CL know that an identical ad on CL and another site wasn't scraped, but just double posted by the author? Do you really think CL is just going to politely ask?

They aren't going to care about one or two or even 100. When the majority of Padmapper's listings were scraped from CL, that is how we end up with this ToS change. CL told them to knock it off, so Padmapper did an end-around thinking they were ok. CL still didn't think it was kosher so they tightened up their ToS to effectively close the loophole.

Do you really think CL is just going to politely ask?

They can politely ask the poster and see if they posted it elsewhere. If yes, nothing else needs to be done. If no, they are probably going to find out the extent the external website has gone to.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#168

Post by jlarocco »

crazygringo wrote: post #81

I'm always fascinated when companies make that one decision which seems to lead to their downfall -- and everyone seems to be able to see it, except the company itself. I think this is a great thing -- if Craigslist can get enough bad press from this, then maybe a movement for "free and copyable" classifieds listings can take place, and there can be competition in the space again.

> I'm always fascinated when companies make that one decision which seems to lead to their downfall -- and everyone seems to be able to see it, except the company itself.

I just don't see this being the downfall of Craigslist.

Fact of the matter is, if I'm posting something on Craigslist then the important thing to me is that it show up on Craigslist. If I wanted it on some other service then I'd post it there. In fact, I'm surprised they haven't had that clause in there from day one. As a user of the site it would be disconcerting to get a response from a person using a site I've never heard of before.

The more I think about it, the more I'm siding with Craigslist on this.

Turn the tables a bit. If Craigslist started it's own rental mapping site using PadMapper's data (HTML, CSS and Javascript files...) they'd clearly be in the wrong. PadMapper is using different data from Craigslist, but I dont' see how it's any less wrong.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#169

Post by Retric »

Karunamon wrote: post #143
tomc1985 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That old adage is dead. "The customer is always right" is a prescription for terror

Agreed wholeheartedly. The customer is often wrong, stupid, and has no idea what they want. Harsh words but they ring true.

However, if people don't buy what your building you have made a mistake. It can be slick, salable, cheap, and marketed to the high heavens, but it's customers that decide if you have a business or a really expensive hobby.

Re: Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting

#170

Post by Retric »

stellar678 wrote: post #61
ralfn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats a little dramatic. CL isnt popular here in Holland, but i was under the impression, it was ebay meets dating, using a 200 byte php forum file, that looked so old, you would just assume encodimg errors. Why are you getting your panties in a twist? What import role does this site play in your life or that of others?

Craigslist is gigantic in big US metro areas. It's pretty much the standard way to find a place to live, to find an employee or a job, to buy and sell used cars, etc... etc... It's also known for having 3 times higher revenue-per-employee than Google even though the vast majority of activity on the site is free.

Craigslist is nowhere near that popular. It the largest secondary market for a lot of things, but for more people trade there car back to a dealer than use Craigslist etc.
Post reply on HN