What is Craigslist?

In April 2008, eBay announced it was suing Craigslist to "safeguard its four-year financial investment". eBay claimed that in January 2008, Craigslist executives took actions that "unfairly diluted eBay's economic interest by more than 10%".

Craigslist filed a counter-suit in May 2008 to "remedy the substantial and ongoing harm to fair competition" that Craigslist claimed was constituted by eBay's actions as Craigslist shareholders; the company claimed that it had used its minority stake to gain access to confidential information, which it then used as part of its competing service Kijiji.

On June 19, 2015, eBay Inc. announced that it would divest its stake back to Craigslist for an undisclosed amount, and settle its litigation with the company.

As of 2012, mashup sites such as padmapper.com and housingmaps.com were overlaying Craigslist data with Google Maps and adding their own search filters to improve usability.

In July 2012, Craigslist filed a lawsuit against padmapper.com.[31] Following the shutdown of Padmapper.com, some users complained that the service was useful to them and therefore should have remained intact.

Over the years Craigslist has become a very popular online destination for arranging for dates and sex.[33][34][35][36][37] The personals section allows for postings that are for "strictly platonic", "dating/romance", and "casual encounters".

In 2005, San Francisco Craigslist's men seeking men section was attributed to facilitating sexual encounters and was the second most common correlation to syphilis infections.

On March 22, 2018, Craigslist discontinued its "Personals" section in the United States in response to the passing of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which removes Section 230 safe harbours for interactive services knowingly involved in illegal sex trafficking.

On March 22, 2018, Craigslist discontinued its "Personals" section in the United States in response to the passing of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which removes Section 230 safe harbours for interactive services knowingly involved in illegal sex trafficking.

On March 22, 2018, Craigslist discontinued its "Personals" section in the United States in response to the passing of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which removes Section 230 safe harbours for interactive services knowingly involved in illegal sex trafficking.

We can’t take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services, so we are regretfully taking craigslist personals offline. To the millions of spouses, partners, and couples who met through craigslist, we wish you every happiness!".

On May 13, 2009, Craigslist announced that it would close the erotic services section, replacing it with an adult services section to be reviewed by Craigslist employees.

On September 4, 2010, Craigslist closed the adult services section of its website in the United States. The site initially replaced the adult services page link with the word "censored" in white-on-black text.

The adult services section link was still active in countries outside of the U.S.[46] Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, "Craigslist isn't legally culpable for these posts, but the public pressure has increased and Craigslist is a small company.

Brian Carver, attorney and assistant professor at UC Berkeley, said that legal threats could have a chilling effect on online expression. "If you impose liability on Craigslist, YouTube and Facebook for anything their users do, then they're not going to take chances.

Craigslist announced on September 15, 2011, that it had closed its adult services in the United States, however, it defended its right to carry such ads. Free speech and some sex crime victim advocates criticized the removal of the section, saying that it threatened free speech and that it diminished law enforcement's ability to track criminals.

However, the removal was applauded by many state attorneys general and some other groups fighting sex crimes. Craigslist said that there is some indication that those who posted ads in the adult services section are posting elsewhere.

On December 19, 2010, after pressure from Ottawa and several provinces, Craigslist closed 'Erotic Services' and 'Adult Gigs' from its Canadian website, even though prostitution was not itself illegal in Canada at the time.

Following the FOSTA bill passed on April 11, 2018, Craigslist ceased offering its "Personals" section within all US domains, stating "Any tool or service can be misused. We can’t take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services.