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0 pointsencoderer14y ago0 comments

It's not "their" data. It's their user's data. As a user and a homeowner I post my rental listing to Craigslist because that's where the most prospective renters are.

In the past, do you think anybody ever looked at the classifieds page in a newspaper and thought "this data is owned by the Times"?

In the PadMapper case, who are the losers? Renters benefit from a radically different UI and de-cluttering of daily reposts. Owners benefit from the increased traffic to their listing. Craigslist benefits because it's more of a 1-stop-shop for owners: post to craigslist (and pay them), and get some level of syndication to different services and apps. They also aren't losing out from reduced mindshare of renters: when you use PadMapper you know you're using Craigslist. It's always obvious and all links point there.

0 pointsencoderer14y ago0 comments

It's not "their" data. It's their user's data. As a user and a homeowner I post my rental listing to Craigslist because that's where the most prospective renters are.

In the past, do you think anybody ever looked at the classifieds page in a newspaper and thought "this data is owned by the Times"?

0 comments

4 comments · 2 top-level

latch14y ago· 2 in thread

It might be your data, but that doesn't somehow make it Craigslist responsibility to share it with other applications. If you want your data listed in as many places as possible, register with each and every system, and enter it.

In the past, do you think when you submitted a classified to 1 newspaper, they called up all the other local and regional papers to submit your information too?

encodererOP14y ago

Of course not. But if another paper copies the listing that you paid them to run -- and runs it for free -- the newspaper doesn't send a C&D.

Nobody is expecting craigslist to push data to 3rd parties. They expose programmatic ways to access listings, and PadMapper used them.

vacri14y ago

Why on earth would another newspaper print an ad or a classified that they're not being paid for?

Also, do you have any examples of this hypothetical happening and newspaper A not having a problem with it? Outside of tabloid culture, ye olde newspapers had much more in the way of principles, and using another's content without permission was reprehensible.

3 more replies

tptacek14y ago

I don't understand this argument at all.

I've posted a couple things to Craigslist. Maybe it's different for rental listings, but for what I've posted, Craigslist did not demand exclusivity. If I wanted to post my listing to some other service, I was free to do that.

Similarly, regardless of what Craigslist's policies are with regards to third party access: it's still your data, right? You are free to post it to an open classifieds service?

That being the case, from where do you derive this idea that Craiglist has somehow taken custody of your data, and thus owes the rest of the industry some measure of access to it? Why is that Craigslist's job? If you want there to be multiple competing listing services, push your data to multiple services.

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