back to article eBay wanted to buy Craigslist, Whitman tells judge

eBay wanted to buy Craigslist whole hog when it scooped up a minority stake in the classifieds website in 2004, former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman told a judge on Monday. Whitman said the online tat house was looking to expand into new markets when it purchased a 28 per cent stake in the company from an early Craigslist …

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  1. Robert Moore
    Troll

    Honest question

    Does anyone know how craigslist makes money?

    1. Blain Hamon
      Boffin

      Honest Answer

      For things like jobs and the like, they actually charge. The usual craigslist stuff is a loss leader.

      http://www.craigslist.org/about/help/posting_fees

      Considering they charge $75 a job posting in SF bay area, for example, and that there's over 400 job postings in that area for just today, I'd imagine it works out really well.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Answering Mr. Moore

      Craigslist makes money by charging for only a few of their categories, such as employment and lodging rentals, in certain cities. Many of its problems result from running unmoderated on a shoestring.

      Craig Numark could be a very rich man, but apparently he has other values.

  2. frank ly
    Heart

    What we say and what we mean

    "Whitman .... told the court that her former company made it clear from the start of talks that it was interested in owning the entire company."

    In the past, I made it clear to various people that I was interested in forming a committed, long term relationship. They often were upset after I screwed them and moved on.

  3. Mike Flugennock

    Huh, no surprises here...

    Online junk bazaar with reputation as Scam Central, who bought the contender for top spot as Scam Central (PayPal), wants to buy site known far and wide as Fake'n'Flake Central?

    No surprises here.

  4. unitron

    Testimony transcript

    "We were always interested in burying, I mean buying, the entire company.

  5. Phil Koenig
    Megaphone

    Background on the share ownership

    It needs to be reiterated that craigslist never expected or desired an organization like eBay to have a stake in the company. It was a hostile situation from the start.

    It was a naive act on the part of Craig to assign a huge block of shares in his namesake company to an untrustworthy person who ended up leaving and making a huge profit by selling those shares to eBay. I can't believe the former shareholder did not know how disastrous such a sale would be viewed by craigslist. But craigslist could do little about it once it happened.

    It must have felt sickening to have that fox in the henhouse all those years, and I really don't blame them at all for trying to dilute eBay's stake. eBay and Meg Whitman pretty much stand in opposition to most of craigslist's core values. And craigslist is nothing if not an organization who has steadfastly stuck to those values, something that we certainly can't say for eBay. I don't doubt that the idea of an eBay-assimiliated craigslist with his name on it would be an extremely troubling situation for Craig to endure.

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