4 ms·
It's not really anti-competitive, and it's very unlikely to be illegal. It's just a fairly classic natural monopoly. There's only likely to be one major classi
by zopa 14y ago
It's not really anti-competitive, and it's very unlikely to be illegal. It's just a fairly classic natural monopoly.
There's only likely to be one major classified ad company, because advertisers want to use the site with the most users, and users want to use the site with the most classified ads. That's hard for a competitor to break into, not because of anticompetitive behavior by Craigslist, but because of the nature of the market.
As for the law, the general rule of thumb, in the US at least, is that it's not illegal to have a monopoly, but it is illegal to use your monopoly to dominate a second market.
- ralfn 14y agoIs it not abuse of your monopoly if you demand that their suppliers do not supply competitors? Because thats essentially what this "exclusive" liscence entails?
- alttab 14y agoI read it as this posting is exclusive. I can make a similar posting somewhere else. Sure, I can't copy-pasta, but if CraigsList thinks that because I post on their site that I can't post it on other sites as well I would LOVE to see them try to sue me.
- ralfn 14y agoYou cant copy pasta your own content. I totally agree though: this will never hold up in court. If they want to "own" user submitted content, they need a signature. Just putting some terms up will not suffice, unless the site "sell us your exclusive content" with big "make CL own this content" buttons.