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eBay vs. Craigslist Courtroom Fisticuffs Start Today

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the grab-the-popcorn dept.

davekleiman writes with news that former eBay chief exec Meg Whitman took the stand today to kick off the battle that has been brewing between Craigslist and eBay. The waters are further clouded by Whitman's upcoming bid for governor of California. "eBay wants to shed light on the 'coercive plan' that it has said Newmark hatched with Craigslist Chief Executive Jim Buckmaster to dilute eBay's ownership stake, ultimately stripping eBay of its seat on the Craigslist board. Craigslist has hit back that eBay used its board seat to glean information to launch its own classified site, Kijiji. Craigslist also claims that eBay used deceptive tactics to direct traffic away from its site."

6 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Kijiji? by ArhcAngel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Spoken like a true eBay shareholder.

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    "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
  2. Re:Seems like a small pond, but eBay is right by FooAtWFU · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Antitrust concerns.

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    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  3. Re:Cross Ownership by BeardedChimp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or even weirder, say having MPs on the board of private companies whose modus operandi directly conflicts with protecting the public... oh wait that does happen. Patricia Hewitt et al.

  4. Re:Seems like a small pond, but eBay is right by Locke2005 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If I was one of the owners of the other 75% of craigslist, I wouldn't be to happy with someone who has a vested interest in craigslist failing getting "a say in how the company is run". Nevertheless, as long as it is a minority stake, anything the eBay proxy advocates should be automatically voted against by the rest of the board anyway. The real issue here is whether you should be able to buy yourself a seat on your direct competitor's board in order to be privy to their trade secrets.

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  5. Re:ebay is now just evil by Trepidity · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I might be missing something, but that doesn't sound particularly suspicious to me. Someone who owned a stake of Craigslist sold it; isn't that basically how stakes in companies work?

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  6. Re:Just one question by Zordak · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Kijiji (pronounced key-jee-jee) is Swahili for village." -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kijiji

    And it's English for "Lame Craigslist Knock-Off With a Stupid Name"

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