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My Take On Craigslist Posting Services

I recently read an article entitled, Are Craigslist’s “Terms of Use” a Concern for Dealers? written by Steve Stauning, founder of pladoogle.com. The article talks about the impact of third party posting agents utilizing Craigslist to post for auto dealerships and the legalities concerning Craiglist's Terms of Use policy.

Craigslist's success is due in part to it's no-frills website that gets back to basics with an online form of traditional classified advertisements. It's no surprise that Craigslist would do it's best to keep it this way and ban posting services that would allow for overposting of ads and/or complex html. Craigslist only allows basic html in their ad posting and is big on stripping out content and ghosting ads that seem too similar.

Auto dealers, real estate agents, and furniture wholesalers alike are known to over-post items so ghosting ads that may be the same isn't such a bad idea. For visitors this is great because I think we visit the site to get those "little gems" - a steal on a great used car or an awesome antique that completes your room. These great finds can become lost in the sea over over-posted items or newer, less rare finds posted by dealers which is why Craigslist has begun to add specifc sections for dealers (i.e. cars+trucks by dealer). There - everyone's happy, right? Everything is ncie and organized in it's own place and clearly marked, so why not allow the third party posting agents to post for dealers in tehir respective sections?

Craigslist's Terms Of Use states that violators will be forced “to pay craigslist … one hundred dollars ($100) for each Item posted by the Posting Agent on (your) behalf … in violation of the TOU.” According to Stauning there have been no violations of the policy to date although the posting agents still clearly exist and their postings are visible on craigslist.