back to article eBay wins partial victory over Craigslist

eBay has won a partial victory in its long-running court case against Craigslist - a Delaware court ruled in its favour over the dilution of its shares in the free ads firm but said it did not have a right to a seat on the board. The case centred on eBay's right to elect a board member and the effective dilution of eBay's …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why is Craigslist worth anything, actually?

    How does Craigslist make money, actually? I don't really understand how Craigslist makes enough money to be worth anything at all.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Lesson learned

    I kind of agree with the chancellor's comment about this being an odd relationship, because ebay seems like an actual business whereas craigslist looks more like what happens when you let the kids run the preschool.

    Reading that craigslist blog...whew. I have to say that Knowlton's behavior isn't actually very surprising. craigslist must be one of those workplaces where it's just like a family; a scary, dysfunctional, bipolar family where everyone's happy and singing and then suddenly they're screaming at each other and setting the couch on fire "just to show you HOW I FEEL".

  3. S 11
    Welcome

    Screw 'em both

    Both these companies suck. The average person stopped selling on eBay because it's too difficult, and the average person hates Craigslist because they don't offer much in the way of screening or filtering content. It's basically a personal data mining operation.

    Any fool with a web server and a domain could takeover Craigslist mindshare and reap their ad dollars. The media is the only hurdle.

    eBay, on the other hand. Who would want to mimic that?

    I for one welcome the eBay/Craigslist killer.

    And Facebook is people!

  4. ZenCoder

    Not all ads on CL are free.

    Craigslist is very successful and was earning more than enough revenue to adequately compensate its low number of employees. I believe they charge fee's for certain types of ads, real estate and help wanted.

    Not everyone wants to be a millionaire, and not everyone who get rich feels the need to get even richer. I have nothing but respect for these guys.

    1. Tom 13

      It may well be true that two of the primary board members don't wish to be millionaires,

      but for a corporation in the US, that doesn't matter. If you are a corporation, your obligation is to make money for your shareholders. If you don't you aren't fulfilling your fiduciary responsibility. If you want to be the sort of business you are describing you need to be a sole proprietor or a partnership, both of which have significant other risks. Not sure if an LLC would work, I've never looked at their specific rules for creation.

      The best way for this to end is for the remaining craigslist founders to sell out their shares to Ebay for twice what they are currently worth and extract an explicit requirement that they not be forbidden to re-enter the line of business in which they are currently operating. Then they find a new name and start up the business again. It's the only way they eventually get to keep a list that runs along the lines of the business they want to run.

      1. Mike Powers

        Or at least run the company properly

        Even if you say flat-out "we're only going to earn enough to cover operating costs", you still have a duty to your employees to not do crazy things. This isn't a WoW guild, you can't just ragequit because you disagree with someone.

        PS in California, anticompete clauses are illegal right from the get-go. Craigslist people could sell everything to ebay and immediately turn around and start Pornlist or whatever.

  5. Markk

    Craig's list lost revenue stream - erotic services

    If ebayclassifieds added erotic services, they might start getting some visitors!

    Craig's List is so dominant, growing, and successful because it has remained true to original Internet freedom, community, and efficiency philosophy. Well, not quite so free now that morality police turned the screws. Before selling out, Slashdot was also an efficient user of bandwidth and computes. Without web page eye candy, CL doesn't need all the staff, servers, and revenue of other major sites. Its stockholders still get to live comfortably and users spared useless graphics and advertising.

    Police don't like freedom - it makes their job more work, so advertisers had to provide more registration information. The victims of erotic services ads were mostly the prostitutes who got mugged by ad responders. That is no different from cash carrying for-sale ad responders going to buy a car, TV etc. and getting held-up by false advertisers. Victims are more likely to report it, though, because they won't become victimized again by police.

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