Craigslist, 3taps settle scraping/antitrust suits with $1M donation to EFF • Hacker News Board

Re: Craigslist, 3taps settle scraping/antitrust suits with $1M donation to EFF

#21

Post by genericuser » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

halflings wrote: post #3

"In the settlement, 3taps, PadMapper and Lovely will collectively pay Craigslist $3.1 million — $1 million from 3taps; $2.1 million from Lovely and nothing from PadMapper. Craigslist has pledged to donate $1 million of that to the Electronic Frontier Foundation over 10 years." They're not settling with $1M donation to EFF, they're still getting $2.1M from Lovely.

And assuming 10 equal payments at the end of each of the 10 years, each percentage point of average return Craigslist sees on that $1 million they earn 55,000. In addition to a getting to presumably write off some portion(all?) of the $100,000 they would be donating each year for tax purposes.

So really they get more than $2.1M value out of this.

Edit: Yes, I realize there is no reason I should assume 10 equal payments over 10 years, given the information available. It was just the closest thing to an 'average case' I could define for a situation like this.

Re: Craigslist, 3taps settle scraping/antitrust suits with $1M donation to EFF

#22

Post by mindslight » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

doorty wrote: post #5

How does one go about upsetting this giant in the marketplace? Everyone wants a better craigslist, but it's useless if they don't have the content.

Open data.

Convincing people to put stuff in your closed database just makes it so you will eventually become the incumbent villain. It also creates a legal target, as demonstrated by this story.

Imagine if anyone could download an extension that would scrape a little bit of craigslist, copying that information into a public shared database that wasn't even centrally hosted.

Re: Craigslist, 3taps settle scraping/antitrust suits with $1M donation to EFF

#23

Post by zaidf » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 5:37 PM UTC

1337biz wrote: post #14

zaidf wrote: post #8

Here's hoping Craigslist dies. The good news is: it is already dying(albeit slowly, one category at a time.)

I don't. It is one of very few platform that don't bother me with all the clutter other websites have. No log-ins, subscribe-me, buy-premium, click-this-ad bs. It just delivers relevant information straight to the point.

Airbnb killed short term rentals category.

42floors is killing the commercial rental category.

OKC/Tinder killed the personals category.

There are three main categories keeping it alive: apartments, jobs and for sale. Each of those categories are under attack from semi-successful startups but no homeruns...yet.

If either For Sale or Jobs categories get an airbnb-like competitor, it will be a massive blow for CL. The former is its largest category. The latter makes it all the revenue. My hunch is that its Jobs category is already under attack and they are having a harder time making revenue resulting in their aggressive legal battles.

Re: Craigslist, 3taps settle scraping/antitrust suits with $1M donation to EFF

#24

Post by extc » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 10:54 PM UTC

prawn wrote: post #9

55555 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start super niche and expand in concentric circles, I guess. It's tough because people don't exactly look for new houses every single day so coming up in their brain as the app/site of choice when they do need a new house/apt is difficult. I would hate to do a "better apartment finder" startup in this space (airbnb excluded). I think craigslist grew pretty slowly over the course of a decade, right? Not sure there's a…

You might almost need to loss lead for years, paying people in some fashion to bring content. e.g., dress up listings similar to the way Airbnb sends out their photographer to shoot your place professionally, or Uber is subsidising drivers to establish a foothold. If you did car sales (as a bad example), you could handle the entire process for customers - sending out a photographer, building the listing and researchi…

https://www.beepi.com/

Re: Craigslist, 3taps settle scraping/antitrust suits with $1M donation to EFF

#25

Post by tempestn » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 4:50 AM UTC

genericuser wrote: post #21

halflings wrote: post #3

"In the settlement, 3taps, PadMapper and Lovely will collectively pay Craigslist $3.1 million — $1 million from 3taps; $2.1 million from Lovely and nothing from PadMapper. Craigslist has pledged to donate $1 million of that to the Electronic Frontier Foundation over 10 years." They're not settling with $1M donation to EFF, they're still getting $2.1M from Lovely.

And assuming 10 equal payments at the end of each of the 10 years, each percentage point of average return Craigslist sees on that $1 million they earn 55,000. In addition to a getting to presumably write off some portion(all?) of the $100,000 they would be donating each year for tax purposes. So really they get more than $2.1M value out of this. Edit: Yes, I realize there is no reason I should assume 10 equal paymen…

Actually if you read the settlement itself, it does explicitly say $100k per year for 10 years.