The tone of this letter is horrible IMO. I understand you're angry, but I imagine this will piss him off more than rile him up. I'd rather see you take them to court with a strong case than start a public, one-sided flame war. There must be a syndicate of investors that realize it would beneficial for them in the long-run to see Craigslist lose the stronghold they have on classified's data. PG (submitted this) and Garrytan (got angry re: padmapper) might be a good starting point.
An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
21–30 of 109 posts
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#22[deleted]
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
So instead of providing a useful service, they should distribute malware designed to... what, maximize their chances of being sued by craigslist?
Does it, though? The plugin today quite arguably scrapes Craigslist programmatically. I think Craigslist has a case there. However, if Krrb instead injected JS at post-time to publish cross-site, I think that argument becomes much less convincing. You can make a case on either side, but I think doing it at post time is important (for one thing, it guarantees that the publisher is actually the person krrbing it)
Does it increase the chances that they would sue? Yes, it does. Does it increase the chances that they'd win? Perhaps not, if your arguments hold. Does that matter? No, because you're still talking about stealth distribution of a program that tracks and republishes user data without their knowledge or permission! (And no, a notice buried in the TOU doesn't count.)
Edit to reply to below: Ah, ok. Your phrasing of "piggyback your plugin into popular installers to get this on millions of computers" sounded like you were planning to sneak it in without users' awareness. If it's an explicit opt in, then I would have no great problem with that from a user perspective. (Of course as a user I'd prefer to just install what I want, rather than being presented with options for a bunch of unrelated stuff, but advertising and affiliate programs keep things going, so I deal with it.)
Personally don't have a problem with the part about scraping something I might post on a classifieds site. Whenever I post something on a public web site I expect it to be scraped and to appear on search engines and such. It was specifically the idea of a service running on my computer, watching and potentially publishing aspects of my web use (and who knows what else), without my knowledge or permission that I took issue with.
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#24I don't know if I should be disappointed in Craig Newmark or not, as I don't know how much control he has. He certainly has control to speak his mind. I've seen him at the National Conference for Media Reform, Netroots Nation, and Code for America events, so I know he's a good, well-intentioned guy.
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is quite different. That said, I expect no response from Craig. Despite his self proclaimed love of customer support, he has been very quiet on these issues.
Smart businessmen (who want to stay in business) don't blog about litigious information, no matter how cool or web 2.0 it is to do so now days. They let their lawyers handle it.
uh.... there is NOTHING web 2.0 about CL
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#26Craigslist has been incredibly consistent about its position. It would be shocking of Krrb didn't get a C&D. The author's mock surprise and petty insults come off really pathetic given this is clearly a planned publicity stunt. CL is simple, unobtrusive, and doesn't make its users feel like it's try to monetize every click or pageview. That's why the dominate the market. I love it that they sue the hell out of anyone…
No, it's that craigslist has massive network effects working for them, so there's no incentive for buyers or sellers to use a different site, even with a better interface and feature set.
3taps is alleging that this monopoly position, combined with craigslist's legal and technical efforts to block any innovation that makes use of data posted on craigslist, constitutes anti-competitive behavior. Whether that assertion has legal merit I don't know, but it seems we'll soon find out.
Edit: Ironically, Krrb itself is essentially an attempt to create this 'better craigslist' you describe. They attempted to deal with the craigslist monopoly problem by providing an easy way for users to post on both craigslist and Krrb, for which they received the C&D.
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does it, though? The plugin today quite arguably scrapes Craigslist programmatically. I think Craigslist has a case there. However, if Krrb instead injected JS at post-time to publish cross-site, I think that argument becomes much less convincing. You can make a case on either side, but I think doing it at post time is important (for one thing, it guarantees that the publisher is actually the person krrbing it)
Does it increase the chances that they would sue? Yes, it does. Does it increase the chances that they'd win? Perhaps not, if your arguments hold. Does that matter? No, because you're still talking about stealth distribution of a program that tracks and republishes user data without their knowledge or permission! (And no, a notice buried in the TOU doesn't count.) Edit to reply to below: Ah, ok. Your phrasing of "pig…
What if we put a little checkbox that says "Install the krrb plugin to automatically post your craigslist listings on krrb as well, thus increasing your chances at a sale."
I'm defining "piggyback downloads" as the extra page that comes up in someones installer. Isn't this a well-established practice? Maybe it's disappeared in the past few years?
I also love seeing this argument come within a community that's generally supportive of programmatically scraping that same user data and republishing it without user permission (although that was more what Padmapper did, not krrb).
Edit: your point re: increase chances of being sued vs. increase chances of success in court is well taken.
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#28This is a pointless waste if time. The guy has made shed loads of money and his actions have clearly demonstrated he doesn't give a flying whatever about anyone's opinion of his actions and will continue to do whatever maximizes his profit. I say that without positive or negative judgment. It just is what it is. The whole - hey we know you're really a nice kid so stop bullying the other kids - schtick never worked in…
I've chatted with Craig before. He has helped us at greatnonprofits.org quite a bit in the past. Regardless of what business decisions the executives in charge of craigslist are making that does not somehow make Craig not a nice guy. In particular I respect his decision to not second guess or meddle with the judgement calls of the executives in charge of craiglist. I am sure if he has any disagreements with how they do business he has the tact to discuss this with them in private.
As far as I can tell Craig cares a lot about the world. I'm sorry if he has been focused on customer service and his nonprofit work and doesn't have time to go out of his way to save every single wantrapanuer that believes they've figured out some way to make a dime off of his past investment in craigslist.
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#29Craigslist litigation history is available at:
http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/index.html?id=3388&table...
Re: An Open Letter to Craig Newmark
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is quite different. That said, I expect no response from Craig. Despite his self proclaimed love of customer support, he has been very quiet on these issues.
Smart businessmen (who want to stay in business) don't blog about litigious information, no matter how cool or web 2.0 it is to do so now days. They let their lawyers handle it.
Care to elaborate?