Slashdot Mirror
eBay Sues Craigslist
phpmysqldev writes "In a very random move eBay has filed a lawsuit against Craigslist to 'protect its investment and shareholders'.
"In a statement, eBay claimed that in January, Craigslist executives took actions that 'unfairly diluted eBay's economic interest by more than 10%'." eBay is a minority shareholder of Craigslist owning 28.4%. Craigslist suspects eBay's intentions are less than honorable, speculating about a possible hostile takeover. The court case is sealed and eBay has not elaborated on its claims."
They own 25% and sound unhappy.
Nobody knows nothin'. If they doe, they ain't sayin'.
But of course we're going to discuss it fully here at slashdot!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
1) Craigslist is a closely held company not traded on the open market
2) This is a dilution suit. This means that basically, in a closely held company, it's easy for a majority shareholder to screw a minority shareholder, since the minority shareholder can't outvote them and can't get other shareholders to support it. Therefore, we have a lot of laws protecting minority shareholders. In this case, it seems that eBay has issued extra stock, which means that eBay no longer really has 28%, but rather less, effectively. This CAN be legal, but there has to be a solid, nonpredatory reason for it.
3) eBay managed to get its share because craigslist had issued some shares to close employees, on the assumption that it didn't matter and was just to feel nice. One of those employees decided to sell his stake publicly, and eBay bought it. Normally, no one would have been able to get access to Craigslist stock.
-Daniel
So obviously I don't know, but this seems a bit anti-competitive. I mean, suing someone because they're competition? Isn't that why monopoly laws and competition bureaus exist? I can't actually see eBay winning this, so they must be doing this for some PR. An at-least-we-tried campaign. Can someone elaborate if this is legit?
Cynical Idealist
TheWordRandomIsSoOverused
I mean is this a TOTAL problem? Sure, it's a problem for Craigslist, but in the longrun, it's not going to really affect the people who use Craigslist...a Hostile takeover by eBay could bring things like fees and such to Craigslist and drag it down to the same level as eBay, and that would most certainly suck, but just as craigslist was started something else would rise to replace it....I'm sure plenty of people have lists
Bobslist....Steveslist....Frankslist....they're all pretty catchy. Regardless, it's another case of the big guy going after the little guy for money, and this usually turns into a deepest pockets kind of thing, unless Craigslist can keep the rest of its shareholders from giving into a possible future hostile takeover that might stem from this lawsuit.
eBay's intention was never honorable, and that was obvious. Why ANYONE would ever think otherwise is incredible, they have no track record of honorable. At least not since Jeff Skoll left.
...they added a poison pill to the articles (or however corporations do such things) in order to prevent a hostile takeover. As a result, ebay's position and their ability to potentially take over Craigslist has been diminished. Boo hoo, cry me a river.
At first, I thought ebay was suing because craigslist was cutting into ebay's auction business. That would be ridiculous, which in American lawyerese seems to be spelled "with merit". Then I was shocked (shocked!) to learn that ebay owns almost 30% of craigslist. Nice little empire, indeed. In reality, it's just a pissing match.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I think it'll be nice if eBay takes over Craigslist. That way I'll be able to use PayPal to pay for all those, ummm, "services" I find on there. Plus I won't need to worry about my wallet disappearing.
This guy's the limit!
They aren't suing because they're competition, they're suing because they own 28% of Craigslist, and Craigslist has been (supposedly) diluting their share. This is EXTREMELY illegal, if done for reasons other than sound financial judgment (and I can't believe Craigslist has a legit reason for issuing more shares, if that is what they've been doing).
Regardless of what you think of eBay, this is a bad deal by Craigslist, if true.
-Daniel
How could eBay perform a hostile takeover? I believe the balance of Craigslist stock is privately held, and NOT on the open market. I don't think eBay can force someone to sell stock to them.
That being said, I think this is the long delayed consequences of selling that stake to eBay in the first place. Unless there is some special language in the company charter, the commonly accepted duty of corporations is to maximize benefits to the shareholder (not saying that it is right, only that it IS). I think eBay bought in years ago expecting to cash in on the big IPO, which never happened, or reap dividends when Craigslist started accepting ads, which it didn't. Now they want to use their minority share position to force the Craigslist management to run things the way eBay wants it.
I hope Craigslist crushes them, but I'm not betting on it.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
No. That's not it at all -- they're suing because Craigslist did something that hurt the value of ebay's stock in Craigslist.
The complaint is sealed, so we don't know exactly what it was. It *could* be something like the following: The stock is worth, say, $100 per share, and ebay owns about 28% of it. Craigslist decides to sell a bunch of shares to Craig at $50 per share. Ebay is hurt because the value of its investment went down, but the value to Craig went up. Basically, it's a breach of the company's duty to the minority stockholder. It has nothing to do with competition.
Did they sue them because Craigslist isn't obfuscated, confusing, feature-bloated and buggy enough to suit them?
Just curious.
I've listed and sold a few items on eBay over the years, including recently and must say, eBay continues to get it wrong. What a fussy, buggy system. Simply interfaces gave way to bloated, unpredictable and just silliness.
As a buyer, the searches are less helpful all the time. "Look, dumbasses, I'm trying to find what I'm looking for," not a lot of other tripe you think I might be interested in.
eBay, want something to do? Go after those fecking frauds selling fake shite out of China. That should keep you busy for a while.
Meanwhile, Feedback system continues to be worthless.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
ebay actually owns a minority interest in Craigslist. Minority shareholders are protected by the corporate laws of most states from abusive practices by the majority shareholders. In this case, ebay claims that the majority shareholders diluted the value of their shares in an unspecified way. Most likely, Craigslist issued additional shares of stock (thus reducing ebay's proportional ownership), or took property from the company in a way that reduced the value of ebay's investment.
Minority shareholders are a major hassle, and it was a pretty sloppy bit of work that ebay was able to acquire the shares of Craigslist in the first place.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
Ebay is a minority shareholder in Craigslist. They aren't upset about any sort of competition. We don't know exactly what they are upset about, as the case is sealed. Most likely Craigslist has introduced a flood of new shares in order to reduce ebay's influence on the company.
P.S. I'm not sure if you are trolling or not, but not everything can be so easily summed up by jumping to conclusions about evil corporations and their anti-competitive nature.
I got a catholic block.
Yeah, I got that from some other people's comments after I posted. The article was light on details since they're sealed, and I misunderstood what was going on. To be fair, eBay's intentions in buying those shares wasn't noble. I would think starting Kijiji.com while being a share holder in Craiglist is anti-competitive. I can't blame Craigslist for trying to push them out (if that's what they did).
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
You, and nine friends, all pitch in $500 for a classic video game collection (a total of $5000). Each person has a 10% stake, so if the games go up in price, everyone profits.
Now imagine that the "chairman" decides to sell an additional $1000 stake to a new participant, ostensibly to purchase more video games. In return this person gets 17% ownership of the video game collection.
Do you see how this dilutes your share of the value? The $1000 stakeholder now has 17%, leaving you with only 8.3%. And suppose that the $1000 of new capital is used to purchase bogus games which have no real value, or even worse, is just pocketed by the chairman. You're getting screwed.
That's what it means when they say you need a "sound financial reason" to dilute the other shareholders' stakes.
The real question is, does Craiglist have this sound financial reason? Is the issuance of fresh stock going to lead ultimately to a gain for all parties? We don't know -- and that's the subject of this lawsuit.
Money is power, power corrupts. Adobe is the new Microsoft, but eBay/PayPal is fast on its heels.
The Admin and the Engineer
So Craigslist became popular enough to affect eBay's bottom line and that warrants a lawsuit. No mention even of patent infringement or anything legally relevant. Just, "They took 10% of our business so we're suing." IANAL, but I'm thinking this falls under frivolous.
This has nothing to do with Craigslist taking ebay's business, it's about Craigslist's executives taking possibly illegal actions to disadvantage a minority shareholder.
Is it just me, or is eBay well on its way to becoming yet another evil .com?
They seem to becoming obnoxious and litigious bastards more and more. Then again, maybe we just don't see the "eBay saves kittens from pound" stories.
I gave up on eBay years ago, but it seems like the only time I hear their name nowadays is in a story which shows them to be rather annoying.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Thank goodness we have laws against anti-competitive practices.
oh, wait...
How exactly is this a "random move"? eBay is upset that Craigslist is (they claim) doing something illegal that harms eBay. So they're suing. Random how?
Craigslist is a untapped gold mine, and eBay knows it. eBay's growth is tepid, at best, and they need some way to appease Wall Street. Why not connive plans on a hugely profitable yet potentially hugely more profitable site like Craigslist? If a hostile takeover was ever their goal and Newmark and Co. nipped that idea in the bud, I'd be a mad eBay, too.
eBay is trying to stop a FREE service from doing the job it has been doing for ages, but allowing a more local search.
All craigslist has to do is take the timeframe ebay is throwing at them and look at when ebay forced paypal usage. Then get a bunch of past customers that stopped using ebay when they forced paypal and get the to say why they left and this will be mute point.
The thrill of ebay is going away and someone developed a service that people can use for free.
ONE FINAL NOTE: Ebay just needs to get more money to pay for their mind numbingly stupid comercials that are playing too often as it is.
Kobutah
"I do not regret the things I have done, but those I did not do."
Film makers are the reason we pull our feet back when something brushes against them.
Actually, I think it means that Craigslist took actions that unfairly diluted eBay's economic interest in *Craigslist* by more than 10%.
buy craigslist and flip it on eBay for a quick buck!
They own 25% and sound unhappy. Yes, can someone please explain as I am not very well-versed in corporate law... what are the legal ramifications of this suit & how does one sue a company that you own 25% of? Isn't that like suing your kids while they're still teenagers or something?
Hostile takeover. Ebay files the lawsuit to devalue the shares. Then, Ebay buys up more and more shares to have greater control over an eventual vote. Ebay tenders an offer for Craigslist. Since it owns more, it can influence the shareholder vote more significantly. Ebay wins the auction (ha) and cancels the lawsuit.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
I withdraw my comment as Craigslist is not a public company. D'oh.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
Seems eBay posted the lawsuit on the "Casual Encounters" board.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Just out of interest does anyone know of any other good online auction sites?
Be gone from my sight or prepare to feel my flaming wraith!
You can sue any company which you own less than 50%+1 share of. Heck, you can even sue companies that you do own (though it's stupid). The legal consequences are unknown, but presumably if eBay got sufficient damages, they could force Craig to sell more of the company, and possibly enough to do a takeover.
This sig has not been evaluated by the FDA. It is not designed to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease.
Really? Then how is it that eBay owns any portion of it?
(Ignorance of the business world is bliss.)
I very much doubt it's legal. It can't be.
At the very least, wouldn't that count as malicious prosecution?
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
You can still own part of a private company.
Makes you wonder if this wasn't eBay's point in buying the stock initially. Buy it, wait for actionable item, sue, take over, profit... Not a bad plan.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Now imagine that the "chairman" decides to sell an additional $1000 stake to a new participant, ostensibly to purchase more video games. In return this person gets 17% ownership of the video game collection.
Before, I had 10% of a company worth $5000, or $500. After I have 8.3% of a company worth $6000, or $500. So how does this dilute the value of my shares? How am I getting screwed?
If the chairman pockets the extra $1000, that's just good old fashioned embezzlement. That has nothing to do with the shares.
A correct example would be, the chairman wants someone to manage our collection and offers shares in the company as an incentive to fill the position. The number of shares goes up without an increase in the value of the company. That results in dilution of my shares.
There is another comment that explains how they got their shares.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
/. isn't an actual news site. It's a blog. If you want hot-off-the-press news, go somewhere else. If you want rational, informational discussions with a wide variety of people, try digg.
Wish I had mod points. This is the most informative post I've read this year!
Your brain is not a computer.
Online auction site eBay acquired a 28.4% stake when it bought shares from a former employee who had been given equity by Mr Newmark.
Public company: Shares for sale to/from anyone via the official markets (NASDAQ, AMEX, NYSE). Private company: Shares for sale to/from anyone via go find them yourself and hand over the cash in person.
(Ignorance of the business world is bliss.)
Ignorance of business gets you screwed by the first unscrupulous person you have to do business with. Good luck with that unless you're a hunter/gatherer hermit who never does business with anyone.
eBay Inc.
2145 Hamilton Avenue
San Jose, California 95125
Dear Sir or Madam,
I read that eBay has sued Craigslist on the grounds that eBay's shares in Craigslist have been "unfairly diluted." The details of the case are under court seal, but there is speculation, both in the public comment by Craigslist and on boards such as Slashdot.com, that eBay's real intention is a hostile takeover of a competitor.
In my view, Craigslist is one of the most popular services on the Internet due largely to its largely non-commercial nature. A possible outcome of the case is that Craigslist would be taken over and overrun by ads, and that it editorial policies would be changed to reflect more heavily commercial goals, to the great detriment of the quality of the service. I do not want to see this happen to this excellent community service. If the essential nature of Craigslist is degraded as a result of this lawsuit, then it is my intention to permanently boycott eBay and PayPal, to shift my business to eBay's competitors, and to encourage others to do likewise.
(Signature)
Craigslist is not publicly traded. This doesn't really work unless the company is publicly traded.
>> Do you see how this dilutes your share of the value? The $1000 stakeholder now has 17%, leaving you with only 8.3%.
Actually, $1000 / $6000 = 16.6%, which is 2x8.3%. Here it's the proportion that matters.
>>And suppose that the $1000 of new capital is used to purchase bogus games which have no real value,
This is no different that is $1000 of existing capitol was wasted and is not related to dilution.
>>or even worse, is just pocketed by the chairman.
What you describe is the chairman selling corporation owned(non-issued) stock and keeping the proceeds. Dilution would not be the issue here either.
The problem is when the change in %voting rights or %of retained earnings and changes significantly.
So Ebay knows less and less people are using their services. They see the downward trend continue with their business and it scares them. No more monopoly for them, no more questionable shill biding practices and obtrusive non auction sellers crowding up search results as more and more people start using craigslist to get away from what has arguably turned into a unbalanced buying website in Ebay. Good by Ebay your days are numbered unless you change and change fast.
I read that as "CowboyNihilist"....
You'd be surprised how large a company can be and still make that same mistake.
SAIC (nee SAI) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Applications_International_Corporation/, number 285 on the Fortune 500 list, was employee-owned until 2006 but didn't think to add the clause giving the company right of first refusal until the first time an employee left the company and declined to sell back the stock they owned.
i love the idea of someone trying to "take over" craigslist. craigslist is not so much a site as it is an idea. it's a glorified message board with categories and a "report this" button. if someone takes it over, they can do one of two things: (1) leave it exactly the way it is, in which case everyone wins, or (2) fuck it up somehow, probably with fees or ads, in which case someone starts a new craigslist elsewhere that has exactly the same feature set as the old one. the only thing that ebay would gain would be the rights to the well-known name "craigslist," but even that would become pretty worthless as people moved on to the new site.
Quick... someone buy a new .com or even better a .org and make it a do the same thing that Craig's list does... but make it better... give every city in the nation a section, not just the big ones.
I'm surprised ebay hasn't sued yahoo for having freecycle groups yet.
Yeah, I noticed that after the fact and commented to my own comment, but since slashdot doesn't allow you to delete your comments, it's stuck.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
It's better when you win it!
They bought stock, which is privately held. On a tiny amount of companies are traded on an exchange. The vast majority are private.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
It is possible to sue the execs (craigslist) because they did not follow the best interests of the shareholders (ebay). An extremely simplified version of this is execs are spending ebays money, inappropriately. Thus, the value of the share drops, and ebay loses more money. I think this is also referred to as a hostile takeover. This could be an attempt on ebays part to gain more clout.
Lame, there goes a free mechanism to sell junk in my basement.
Taking it out on craigslist because they (eBay) upped their prices and fees due to the fact fewer people use them... Nice. It has nothing to do with all the discussions in the news about the US economy sucking wind is really squeezing families making less than $100K a year.
Please...
Thanks for all the great replies, I am that much more enlightened and proportionally disillusioned :)
Good clarification on why they're suing. To elaborate on your suggested scenario: Craigslist, as a closely held company, has no public market for its shares, and therefore its shares are hard to value. In this case, the company can typically exercise its judgment on its own valuation in the case of a new offering of shares or options. You can definitely say that $100/share is the fairest price to pay for new shares in a company that is trading at $100/share on the stock market, but in the case of a private company like Craigslist, or M&M Mars, every party does their own evaluation based on comparable public companies, discounted cashflow valuation, liquidation value, etc.. Two parties could easily value a private company, one at 50, and the other at 100.
So a hostile takeover is like the business equivalent of catching a Pokemon...except you're using lawsuits instead of status effects, buying shares instead of attacking, and tendering an auction instead of throwing a Pokeball. Makes sense.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Craigslist is a good place to find a tech-savy lawyer that is willing to communicate via email and take online payments.
Where is the ??? entry and isn't the list supposed to be vertical, not horizontal?
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Trying to push share price down like that would deserve a countersuit.
EBay is slimey. I've got 100% postive feedback for EBay with over 150 buys and sells over 7 or 8 years now. Let met tell you they are a slimely group and Craigslist is their worst nightmare. EBay doesn't see the writing on the wall which is that their service is living on borrored time. Why pay to post online??? I admit I do because there's a good working market there, but someday there will be a good working market without them. I look forward to that day.
Just yesterday Marketplace conducted an interview with the Craigslist CEO. You can listen to the interview on their site (it's the "listen to story" link, not the "listen to show" link). It's a pretty interesting interview -- one of the questions was "why aren't you running advertising?" And the answer was "because it's annoying and we think annoying our customers is stupid." When I heard him say that, I sat back and thought "Yeah! Nice to hear a CEO who really gets it."
They're a profitable company; but not madly, hugely, enormously profitable the way they could be. I like that. Capitalism offers powerful incentives to participate in the economy, which is generally good; but it also has a tendency to encourage empire-building and delusions of grandeur. So it's nice to see a company once in a while which isn't hell bent on world domination.
I wish their pages were a bit better designed, though. I appreciate the focus on navigation, but would it kill them to put borders around some of the boxes full of lists, to visually group them? And they could make some improvements for screen reader users, especially adding headings so that blind visitors could have their screen readers jump to the headings in the page rather than having to wade through everything that comes before the part they're interested in.
Mod parent up - there's no catching involved in the card game.
IMO, after Crystal the games started to stagnate. Until Diamond/Pearl anyways.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Take note Libertarian fundamentalists, your flawed assumption is that companies will compete fairly leading to good outcomes for all. But that's not how it works in the real world where in fact companies are run by greedy people who will use any tactic fair or foul to win. Whether it's sleezy stock deals, lawsuits, or working to gain monopoly companies CANNOT be trusted to compete fairly in the so called "free market" which is full of foul collusion that screws the little guy and leads to bad outcomes for all. Like or not that is why we have regulation of markets above and beyond just making sure contracts are fair as Libertarians would like it.
Thus you FAITH in the free market is no more founded in empirical reality than the faith of creationists. Time to go back to the drawing board now that empirical reality shows you are living in a fantasy world with assumptions about human nature every bit as flawed as the communists were.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
The second part of your comment would make a great sig.
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
Ebay is afraid that people will finally realize that selling their junk locally, using the proven "classifieds" business method, using cash -- and without the silly overhead of auctions -- is a much more pleasant experience than inviting the 500-pound gorilla that is ebay into your house.
Really, I'd drop my price by 25% before I touch ebay. Just avoiding the hassle has to be worth at least 25% to me.
Probably on eBay, then Craigslist wouldn't be able to leave negative feedback.
As Sam Kinison once said to Rodney Dangerfield: "I like the way you think!"
I had an image of the Coke guys asking to sue Coke Zero, but maybe that's just me.
Craigslist, even with the layout is very useful...
eBay probably sees a chance of "keeping it free" while offering 1000 unneeded features for ranging fees, direct kickbacks to their credit card site where they can ding the same person again and watch the prices go up... er wait, I guess I could have just said they'll apply the eBay strategy.
"In a very random move eBay has filed a lawsuit against Craigslist to 'protect its investment and shareholders'.
Lawsuits are random?
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
"Untapped gold mine" means that there is an extractable, non-renewable resource that can be tapped for immediate revenue. I think it's a very apt description for how a company like eBay would look at craigslist:
A resource that they could extract advertising revenue for ~10-20 quarters, while destroying its value, and then move on to the next mine.
Craigslist current business model, however, can be better described as something like a tree farm or sustainable exploitation of a fishery, where the revenue production is comparatively modest in the short term, but consistent in the long term.
They can have my casual encounters when they pry them from my warm, sticky fingers
If you own part of a private company, you want to either just be a silent partner or you want you want to have controlling interest. Anything under 51% is not controlling interest. If you have less than 50% then you are at the whim of any decision you partners want to make, as long as that decision is within the laws and bylaws controlling your company.
Now if the Board (typically put in place by the majority owner, unless you have a close holding and cumulative voting) issues a bunch of shares without a previous non-dilution agreement, there will be a dilution of shares and potentially value. This is what eBay is complaining about.
From what I have read, the Board issued shares to another entity increasing the number of shares outstanding. Therefore, eBays original number of shares now come from a larger amount of shares, thus they have a lower percentage. As the value of eBays interest is based on the percentage of shares they basically have seen a forced decline in their investment. The Board has a legal fiduciary responsibility to all shareholders equally to give them value for their investment. eBay is suing as they believe that the Boards actions impacted the value of their shares, by reducing the percentage of the total value they are due.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
In related news, Safeway announced that it is suing Starbucks because Starbucks is seriously undercutting its coffee sales. Safeway's public relations manager announced, "The American people deserve the opportunity to have a good cup of coffee in the morning, it's a god-given right! Starbucks is undermining that right by introducing mass confusion into the coffee marketplace. Before Starbucks, people always knew that they get their good, dependable, all-American coffee at the same store, at the same place, year after year. Now that Starbucks has appeared, they aren't sure. We have to put a stop to them. It's what Jesus would do."
Thanks.
True so there is no share price to knock down.
If ebay can get a controlling majority in craigslist they put the prices up to be higher than thier own and they win.
If ebay can bankrupt craigslist they buy the name/domains at the bankrupcy sale and either redirect it to ebay or set up thier own craigslist site with ebay like pricing. Again they win.
If they can get a settlement or judgement paid in stock that puts them closer to a controlling majority.
snap up shares when you can and harras the company with minority shareholder lawsuits (which are likely to cause pain to a lot of companies who aren't agressively monitising thier assets) in the meantime. Also harras the company with any other lawsuits you think you can get away with.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Whether they honestly belive it or not is irrelevent. They can claim it and since a private company is difficult to value they can probablly cause a reasonablly protracted lawsuit over it.
Afaict for ebay buying a share in craigslist serves two purposes, firstly if they find more people willing to sell out they may eventually get a controlling interest (which would allow them to put up it's prices), secondly it gives them a whole new category of lawsuits to harras them with.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Ebay is finally beginning to realize that they pissed away all the money that they have ever made and all the money that they ever will make by buying Skype for billions of dollars. Jesus, I'd love just one toke of whatever they were smoking when they thought that was a good idea. They just threw several billion dollars at the first wild-ass idea that walked into the room.
First they tried to convince themselves (no one outside the company would ever believe it) that this could be turned into a smart business move, somehow. No luck there.
Then they tried to raise prices on their eBay customers and give lots of hints about how well Skype could be 'integrated' into the eBay 'experience'. This only resulted in lots of pissed off eBay customers because selling used junk from your closet is very low profit-margin 'business' to begin with. So now they come to the conclusion that the only way to avoid the consequences of being stupid is to sue your competitors.
Well, that isn't going to work either.
Ebay should just bite-the-bullet and accept that they did something really stupid by buying Skype. First, find and fire everyone in the company who thought that it was a good idea (hint: start with Meg!). Second, expand your core business, which is providing a means for people to sell their second-hand junk easily. Post the StarTrek Ferengi rules-of-profit everywhere. Then go out and buy or rent any big-box store in the vast wasteland of American suburbs that becomes available. Have people bring their unwanted secondhand stuff to the big-box and either sell it like a 'garage sale', consign it, or hold either standard auctions or eBay auctions.
The difference between Craig's_List and eBay is that CL is basically local and eBay is very specialized. I've used both to sell MIDI tone modules. With CgList, you set a price and sell the item to the first person who shows up with the money. With eBay, you write a detailed description, wait for registered bids, and at an agreeed-upon time, the person who submitted the highest bid (and actually pays) gets shipped the item being sold.
Very few eBay sales are local; almost all CgLst sales are local. I use CgList for inexpensive items that would cost a lot to ship and I use eBay for speciality items that I'm willing to ship anywhere in the world. I usually meet the actual buyer when using Craig's List. With eBay, I've sold to people in distant lands who don't speak English (by using web-translator cut-and-paste-text programs on international e-mails.)
Craig's List is a lot cheaper than eBay, but it is much shorter in the amount of time that the listing remains in view. If an item doesn't sell (or attract interested buyers) within six to eight hours on Craig's List, then it most likely won't sell at all. Everything on eBay (usually) sells, but you might not get a high price for it. I've found that most things on eBay (especially electronic musical instruments) will bring the same price (within 10%) as identical items sold within the past month, regardless of how low the starting bid is or how long the auction period is.
Ebay is also an excellent place to sell microchips and electronic components that can be bought for good discount in lots of 25 or 100 from electronic distributors with minimum orders. The surplus chips can be sold on eBay in lots of two or three each (Dutch auction style) for what you paid for them and shipped by mail in padded envelopes inexpensively.
Basically, Ebay is a world marketplace for very specialized goods. It has high fees but it is very efficient. Craig's List is a local expansion of a garage sale that can use the internet to position sales in distant markets.
eBay is just mad because Craigslist isn't for sale using Buy It Now :-P
I'd sell my stock right now for a sangwich!
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Are you kidding me? On the Way? eBay is already pure, distilled evil and incompetence. The recent requirement to use Paypal for all transactions, the substantial rate hikes; everything they do is to leverage their captive userbase and squeeze more revenue out of them. They know they're the only serious worldwide game in town for what they do, and they're intent on exploiting that to the fullest. I, for one, can't wait to see them dethroned by someone and reduced to irrelevance, now that they've worn out all their goodwill.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Craigslist should just state that they're "not really a company" and their stock isn't stock. It works for ebay and paypal.
There is a lot of speculation about what is and what is not legal in manipulating share value.
If craigslist is a private corporation, which is not publicly traded, then they do not have to abide by the rules that a publicly traded company does.
In fact, as a private corp, the majority of the share holders can vote for anything they like. They can vote to be non-profit, and as long as the ownership of the company decides this, it is done.
"Going public" is a process of accepting certain rules that a corporation does not need to do in order that their stock has some measurable value.
a little too minimalistic. Searching through their data for the perfect apartment or furniture can be kind of a pain given the limited sorts of information you can specify in a search.
If anyone were to do a better version of craigslist, it would be google. I'd like them to put some of their data mining and search expertise to work to be able to search over every apartment that is going to be on sale when I move.
Oh, on the contrary, yes it can be so summed up.
Craigslist is not only eBay's single biggest threat, it is a MASSIVE threat. Why? Because of the size of the Craigslist user base. If (when) Craigslist "goes for the big money" eBay is phuked. I saw a Wall Street Journal analysis over 2 years ago that estimated the value of the "Craigslist" brand at over US $800 million. Craigslist doesn't have income anywhere near that amount. What this "valuation" is based on is *potential*. *IF* Craig decided to "make a serious go of it" eBay would lose at minimum likely between 25-40% of its business in the first year and over 50% in a few years.
THAT is what this whole saga is about. THAT is why eBay snapped up the steak in Craigslist when it had the opportunity.
Anyone who doesn't see this for what it is has a total lack of understanding of the business world...
The non-commercial, non-capitalist San Francisco doesn't seem to be one I've ever encountered. Are you talking about the same one that has one of the highest per-capita incomes of any city in the United States? Where the most recognizable element of the skyline is named after an insurance company? And where there's currently a flurry of building activity for luxury condos?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Exactly. Ebay already has it's nose in the tent (buying the shares from a former employee) and is now trying to get their whole head in. Soon poor craigslist will be sitting outside of the tent in the cold.
So how long before they force you to have a PayPal account on Craigslist despite the fact the deals are suppose to be done in person?
Not quite.
One can still own "shares" in private companies. It just takes more work. Private companies almost always seek new capital. They just use investment banks and venture capitalists instead of public stock trading. So if you want to buy into a private company, conceivably you can do so -- provided you know the right people and can participate in the new capital infusion via that knowledge.
Close corporations and partnerships still have "shares" within them. The shares just aren't publicly traded on an open market like the stock exchanges.
The lack of public trading doesn't mean there aren't ownership shares. It just means they're far less accessible to Joe Sixpack and Ethel Nascar.
Anyone who tries to imply that 25% ownership in a privately held company can't influence the value of that company with a lawsuit such as eBay has filed -- well, that person doesn't understand business as well as he pretends, and he surely doesn't understand corporate machination, and he surely doesn't understand strategic litigation.
Slashdot's most glaring weakness is that the techno-savvy participants have grandiose ideas of the breadth of their knowledge and intelligence. Coding and other technological competencies don't mean jack shit to a corporate lawyer or litigator and they don't have much relevance -- if any -- to the world of cut-throat business manipulation.
Oh great. Another 1st year corporate associate tries to share irrelevant expertise and pass it off as relevant.
Your "pretty basic stuff" is irrelevant here. I guess it's cool that you know such simple uses of rights of first refusal. You must have paid attention during that 15 min interval in your Business Associations class in law school. Bully for you.
And "drhamad" above is equally misled. He talks in point (2) about theoretical crap that might apply in one context, but there's nothing to indicate it applies to Craigslist. And if "drhamad" is an attorney for Craigslist or eBay -- the only way he'd know such stuff with any rectitude -- then he's crossed the line of ethical client representation and needs to contact his malpractice insurer's risk management advisor.
Amazing, the misinformation on Slashdot once the participants venture outside pure technology and computer-related nonsense.
Since you seem to know your way around suing, I'd like to ask you a question I've been pondering for weeks now:
Can you legally sue yourself?
I was thinking about something along the lines of lending myself some money and failing to pay it back, but are open for other ideas.
" not everything "
I suppose but in the current world of technology it seems this statement is open to contention.
I'm not really seeing how your email enhanced much on the previous two, so i suppose the tech-savvy participants were savvy enough to hit the main points. Sometimes a simple general explanation is perfectly suited and the granular machinations of the subject is not necessarily required.
Craiglist is privately held, how can eBay buy more stock if it is not offered to them???
You are a moron. He said that in his "withdraw my comment" message. If you're gonna bitch, at least read the whole thread.
put up it's prices
"its".
from it's investment
"its".