How are your reacting to new craigslist fines?

craigslist's Terms of Use (TOU) now spells out specific fines for both third party posters and the firms that hire them. One company that makes a tool that simplifies posting is being sued (Troopal - link to case www.docstoc.com/docs/16637070/craigslist...Strategies-Inc-et-al ).

How is this going to affect our industry's use of third party agents or tools?

PS Here is the following is the applicable section of the TOU:

"If you are a Posting Agent that uses the Service in violation of the
TOU, in addition to any liquidated damages under clause (d), you agree to
pay craigslist one hundred dollars ($100) for each and every Item you post
in violation of the TOU. A Posting Agent will also be deemed an agent of
the party engaging the Posting Agent to access the Service (the
"Principal"), and the Principal (by engaging the Posting Agent in
violation of the TOU) agrees to pay craigslist an additional one hundred
dollars ($100) for each Item posted by the Posting Agent on behalf of
the Principal in violation of the TOU."

Interesting -

Have you come across examples of this penalty being applied?

No, and I don't even know exactly how they intend to enforce these rules. But since so many people are using posting tools and services, I thought it was worth bringing this up for discussion even if it's not extremely new news.

Awareness is always good -

We are big CL and third party users - generates a good deal of traffic for us in certain sub-markets. Without really digging in, it sounds like if you and or the third parties are following the rules - life is good. If not - life, as it relates to CL - is bad..

Have a great night.

When you think about it what Craigslist started out being and what it has become are two totally different animals. It was for individuals to connect to other individuals (c 2 c). Over the last 4 to 5 years mostly it has become a b 2 c, with companies figuring out ways to get around CL way of doing business.

It looks like businesses need to band together to help each other. I am not sure how that will happen, but it may need to happen.

Mike - I'm with you, I'm curious to see an example of a company actually being fined legitimately.

Craigslist provides an awesome service for businesses. It's the 11th most popular website and we get to use it for free - in exchange for following the terms of use. The problem here is a 3rd party poster who violated the terms by doing completely automated posts. Just make sure your 3rd part poster is legit. The RentLinx Craigslist Helper has assisted with hundreds of thousands of posts since 2006 - with no problems.

I think the spirit of this rule-and frankly most of craigslist TOS- is to deter spammers and give CL legal recourse in seriously abusive cases. In other words they are not out to get apartment communities that post legitimate units regardless of how it is done or even if you post a bit more than you should(technically).

CL is most concerned about the "work at home" jobs or the "business opportunities" that are spammed daily across the site.

I also see some major gray area in this rule. Is the marketing assistant that you pay $10 per hour a third party? At what point is someone not a third party? Who is to say that the property manager is not a 3rd party? After-all, it is not technically their apartment that is up for rent. One could argue that you might be able to haul every independent rental agent into court for acting as a third party.

I agree that the TOS change was to give CL grounds to go after major offenders, and the first targets, if there are any more, will probably be technology-based providers, not multifamily companies hiring interns or third parties to do manual postings. Even so, we decided to let the (very) few customers we were doing postings for know about the TOS. They are all conservative and opted to start doing them in house in light of this information.

Computer technology has become so inexpensive that we tend to think of Internet hosting as free. But the truth of the matter, is that CL incurs some small cost per post. A few posts here or there don't matter, but when you have many systems submitting thousands of posts per day, it adds up. Not to mention, it's easier to over post with these tools which is anathema to the folks at CL.

Does this refer to someone selling something for their company that sells used items under there own personal account?