Craigslist : If you can’t beat them, sue them !
Craig posted on his blog in blog.craigslist.org a response to eBay’s lowsuit filed against Craigslist, alleging that CL BOD unjustly dilluted eBay’s stake at the company.
eBay is sure to deepen alienation with it’s two major competitors. First the ongoing tiff with Google over eBay’s refusal to allow Google Checkout as a payment option that ultimately sunk eBay listings from prominent search result positions on Google seach and now a legal action against it’s other most prominent competitor CL.
Craig said in his blog:
“We are surprised and disappointed by Ebay’s unfounded allegations, which came to us out of the blue, without any attempt to engage in a dialogue with us.”
“Coming from a shareholder that views craigslist as a prime competitor, filing suit without so much as mentioning these assertions beforehand seems unethical, and hints at ulterior motives.”
These two sentences characterize eBay perfectly.
Craigslist did not get lawsuit happy when eBay acquired Kijiji and begun directly compete with CL … BACK THEN we were thinking - eBay acquires stake at CL, observes the business so it can copy it’s success and directly compete with them.
This event concides with onlyebay blog celebrating kijiji 400,000 listings in US while Craigslit boasts over 30,000,000 monthly listings according to this Craigslist valuation.
So what does eBay seek to gain by this lawsuit. One observer said that perhaps weakening CL’s financial position by costly litigation may force CL to monetize on more of it’s properties and thus further increase eBay’s paper profits. Better paper profits = more shareholders thinking eBay is worth investing in.
Update: May 2, 2008 :
- CraigsList blog provided additional information.
- eBay provided a link to the Redacted Court Document eBay vs. Craigslist