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Craigslist Suing Padmapper

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Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#421

Post by wwweston »

Maascamp wrote: post #43

The tone in this article is unbelievable. > The case raises questions over whether Craigslist is stifling innovation or simply protecting its data There is no question. Craigslist isn't stopping Padmapper from being built, its stopping Padmapper from using Craigslist data . The continuous attempts to reframe Craigslist's actions as an attempt to stifle innovation seem almost surreal. I just can't understand how a com…

> I just can't understand how a community of professionals could support Padmapper in this.

Well, for one thing: different ideas about what constitutes fair game for property/control claims.

Not everything can be copyrighted or patented, and specifically, it's really not clear that a rental/for sale/wanted listing is actually a copyrightable work.

If that weren't enough, though, there's also not really a clear difference between what Padmapper does and a search engine -- it doesn't "steal" listings and put them wholesale on their site without attribution, it provides a geographic search that yields a limited digest and then points users to the original source.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#422

Post by qq66 »

ataggart wrote: post #184
Maascamp wrote: post #43

The tone in this article is unbelievable. > The case raises questions over whether Craigslist is stifling innovation or simply protecting its data There is no question. Craigslist isn't stopping Padmapper from being built, its stopping Padmapper from using Craigslist data . The continuous attempts to reframe Craigslist's actions as an attempt to stifle innovation seem almost surreal. I just can't understand how a com…

The posts on CL are no more "Craigslist data" than videos on YouTube are "Google data". The data is submitted by the users for the express purpose of being seen by other people. Does anyone seriously argue that users listing flats on CL do not want their listing found by other avenues? It is clear that Padmapper is providing a service beneficial to both suppliers and consumers of rental properties, and CL is using th…

I don't really have a horse in the PadMapper/Craigslist debate but your analogy to YouTube is apt. I have a bunch of videos uploaded to YouTube, and I've permitted embedding because I know that even if a video is embedded somewhere I can still remove the video from my YouTube Channel Manager.

When I upload a video to YouTube, I do expect to retain control of it solely through my interactions with YouTube, and expect that when I take it down it gets taken down across all Google properties. I would be pretty angry if I found that my videos were on another site which had scraped YouTube's data and now was hosting my video without any ability for me to remove it.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#423

Post by user345 »

stfu wrote: post #187
ig1 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably 3Taps violates Google's ToS to get the data from them ?

I would really love to know that kind of shady proxy bot army they have implemented in order to scrape Google on such a scale.

This type of comment is common. Not only on HN but on forums in general.

While I agree the web is full of lowlifes engaged in web development, many of them in porn or some other area that appeals to base instincts, I find this comment perplexing. Because it is so subjective, yet it tries to seem objective by focusing on some random criteria.

Google employs a "bot army" to scrape the entire web. So what?

If the comment was something like "I don't like Company X." Or even "I don't like Company X because...", it would make sense to me.

But that is not how this common type of comment goes. Instead it suggests that bot=evil, i.e. any sort of automation or any sort of data collection by anyone other than [your favorite company] is "shady".

That's crazy. IMO.

It's what a company does with the data that matters.

Anyway, I'm not keen on 3Taps because they are not provinding bulk data, only API's that require "developer keys". Why?

Either you are going to democratise data, or you are just another schemer trying to find ways to collect infromation about people, in this case people using "your API".

I don't want API's I want the data. I can make my own interfaces thank you.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#424

Post by fffggg »

res0nat0r wrote: post #298
usaar333 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do anything? The point is that users do not care if other companies copy their listing data (and aren't even aware of such a restriction).

How have you determined that every users listing on Padmapper doesn't care it has been scraped from CL and relisted? Did they contact every user and get their permission first?

It's not necessary for them to do so. It's incumbent upon CL to prove the infringement, not the other way around.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#425

Post by erichocean »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

This isn't surprising of course, it is their data after all, but it brings up the 'easy problem' / 'hard problem' (E/H-P) conundrum quite nicely. The conundrum is that it is 'easy' to take an existing, quality data source, and re-skin it for broader market appeal. This is something that Craigslist should be doing but perhaps through poor management are not. It is 'hard' to take a conceptual model of skinning and buil…

Your kidding, right? Until today, I had never heard of Padmapper, but I have hated (like everyone else) CLs interface.

CL just put them on the map in a big way as being "Craigslist with a good UI" -- so good, they had to sue. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#426

Post by wwweston »

eli wrote: post #268
kloncks wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It's not their data. It's ours, as the users. Craigslist doesn't own anything I upload to them. The reason PadMapper exists is because Craigslist refuses to not suck.

Exactly right. And if you want your data to be reposted on another site, then you should repost it. Craigslist is delivering exactly what it its users signed up for (no more no less). People posting ads on Craigslist do not necessarily want or intend for it to be reposted on other sites.

Padmapper's isn't "reposting" any given listing -- it displays an abbreviated digest of the listing in its search results, and then if the user clicks, it takes them to the original listing.

If this is illegal or otherwise objectionable without an explicit agreement from each Craigslist poster, I'm not really sure how a search engine or even descriptive hyperlinking is kosher without explicit agreement from each website indexed or referred to.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#427

Post by wwweston »

eli wrote: post #312
mnicole wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if you want your data to be reposted on another site, then you should repost it. I had to giggle a little bit at this in the grand scheme of the internet, sorry. When I posted something on Facebook Marketplace, I started getting emails and comments from other "market" sites that Facebook had cross-posted my listing to. While it was annoying to not know this up front, the fact that it was more visible and gettin…

Personally, I'd prefer if Facebook acted a little more like Craigslist with my data, not the other way around.

Interestingly, in both cases, the economic incentives for operators seem to be basically counter to likely user intent and expectations.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#428

Post by ChuckMcM »

pg wrote: post #210

Craig Newmark said on Quora that the reason they didn't like people building stuff on top of Craigslist was simply the extra bandwidth they consumed: http://www.quora.com/Why-hasnt-anyone-built-any-products-on-... But now that 3Taps has found an ingenious way to get at the data with zero extra bandwidth cost to Craigslist (by retrieving it from the Google cache rather than CL itself), it's clear that what Craigslist…

I'm sure Craig was speaking truthfully when he made his comment. But he is but one piece of a whole, and that whole includes folks who count the pennies. And business person associated with Craigslist would know that the only value Craigslist has is its listings. Giving those away to be re-used by another web site would never fly with such a person. I don't doubt for a minute when you tell someone is taking money out of your pocket that you need to fund your operations (I know, I know its more nuanced than that but its the gist of the argument) well you an roll over or you can fight.

If they go to court and get an opinion it should be really helpful as a guide for other entrepreneurs who see re-processing the information on the web in new ways as the foundation for their business.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#429

Post by eli »

operand wrote: post #386
cft wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google obeys robots.txt file. Padmapper does not. That's a critical difference.

CL's robot.txt file does not 'disallow' crawling the real estate section. So Padmapper was likely as compliant as Google. http://www.craigslist.org/robots.txt

No, this is just semantics.

The point is Google respects publishers' desire not to be indexed. Padmapper does not. Robots.txt is simply a common method for conveying that message. It's not like Padmapper could argue they didn't know CL was unhappy; they got a certified letter!

This is just semantics. Google respects publishers who do not want their sites listed.

Re: Craigslist Suing Padmapper

#430

Post by slowpoison »

I'm getting sick of the general attitude here. A majority of people seem to think that it's OK to copy user posting data from CL, because they are a monopoly. IE is cited as an example of a monopoly, thus anything is OK to take it down.

That attitude is horribly wrong. Agreed, CL is a monopoly. Agreed, they are holding back innovation. But, you don't disrupt a business (and build yours) by copying their data, especially illegally. Although, the legality of issue at hand is up in the air right now, the general attitude is a bit appalling.

What's required is a way for users to post their listings simultaneously at other properties. The content of the postings belongs to the user and they should be free to re-post it anywhere.

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