Not sure I would call that ingenious. But your point is sorely need of being made more often.
How many other websites use arguments like "bandwidth" to falsely portray competitors who access their publicly shared data as somehow in the wrong?
Many. Some here on HN. No need to name names.
No doubt even Google would complain about people "scraping" search results.
To me, it is a joke. Because the people who complain use automation to access, retrieve, organise and serve information and thereby establish their business. Only then to try to forbid others from using automation to do the same.
And all the while, it's NOT THEIR INFORMATION. This is not Craigslist's data. It's users' data.
It belongs to users, who are today's "publishers" and possess all those good ole publisher's rights. (Though they may naively license them out.)
The users chose to give Craiglist permission to use their data. They did not choose to give PadMapper their data, or else they would have posted their listing to PadMapper.
They did give Craiglist permission to prevent others from using their data without permission. In this context, scraping any version of Craiglist's site (whether CL itself or a third party cache) falls within Craiglist's rights under the license they were given, and within the user's expectations of what Craiglist will do with their data.
Weak argument. Did they give Google "permission" to access the data (and store and republish it)?
Google is allowed in robots.txt. But that is not exactly what I would call an agreement.
The simple fact is this info is on the public web which, by its nature, copies and transfers data. That's what the web does. You upload something and it goes "viral". You have principles like the "Streisand effect" to contend with.
This goes back a long way. No doubt judges remember. The Ken Starr report on Ms. Lewinsky. Some random classified ad. Like it or not, information gets desseminated.
If you want to protect and restrict access to data, then you do not upload it to the public web. You put it behind access controls, e.g., a password. This is common sense.
If anyone has a claim here, it's users who do not want their ads on PadMapper (if there are any). CL has no standing and their motives are both pathetic and transparent.
How many other websites use arguments like "bandwidth" to falsely portray competitors who access their publicly shared data as somehow in the wrong?
Many. Some here on HN. No need to name names.
No doubt even Google would complain about people "scraping" search results.
To me, it is a joke. Because the people who complain use automation to access, retrieve, organise and serve information and thereby establish their business. Only then to try to forbid others from using automation to do the same.
And all the while, it's NOT THEIR INFORMATION. This is not Craigslist's data. It's users' data.
It belongs to users, who are today's "publishers" and possess all those good ole publisher's rights. (Though they may naively license them out.)