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PadMapper Gets C&D From Craigslist Over Apartment Listing Maps

Posted by timothy on from the too-bad-smart-service dept.

First time accepted submitter Autumnmist writes "Craigslist has sent a Cease and Desist to PadMapper, a site that does a mashup of Craigslist (as well as Rent.com, Apartments.com) apartment listings and Google Maps. Craigslist is great, but apartment hunting through Craigslist has always been a needle in a haystack proposition, because all apartments for an entire city area are shown in a giant list. PadMapper made Craigslist better by locating each listing on a Google Map of the area. From PadMapper: 'I recently received a Cease and Desist letter from Craigslist, and wasn't able to get a meeting or convince Craigslist's lawyer that PadMapper was beneficial to Craigslist and apartment hunters in general. They allow mobile apps to display their listings if you buy a license from them, but not websites."

3 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Why only PadMapper? by t4ng* · · Score: 4, Insightful

    HousingMaps.com has been doing this for something like 5 years. I'm sure there are probably others like it too.

  2. Why bother? by SlowTurtle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not only is this a major bummer for me, as I love using PadMapper, I don't see why craigslist would do this. Not only did it make craigslist apartment listings actually usable, but it must be driving a fair amount of traffic to them as well. Perhaps if craigslist was about to launch something similar I could understand, but I think we all know that is not going to happen.

  3. Re:It like the 80's never ended in San Fran by Ossifer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, why don't they have seven different competing nav bars and three layers of epilepsy-triggering flash ads?

    The plain text UI is *exactly* why CL is popular.