This is one of the “don’t get it” weird notices from the lawyer representing Craigs List that was the in take down cease and desist row with Craigs List unofficial blog. The lawyer when explaining the C&D goes on to state that the site was running “deceptive text link ads” that they screen capped. The problem is that they screen capped a lot of Google ads, which is the bedrock process of the 2 dollars you make a month off your blog.

Fwiw, we have no interest in shutting down blogs about craigslist, critical or otherwise, and have never tried to do so. But in the strange world of trademarks and copyright, it’s poor practice to allow a confusingly similar domain or business name to go unchallenged. Given all the inquiries we’d gotten from reporters thinking this blogger was associated with craigslist, taken together with the deceptive textads and disrespect for our trademark and terms of use, we felt we had to act. Source: Craigslist Blog the official one

Of course the folks at the unofficial craigs list blog does a response, and notes the same thing we noted, that the official craigs list group seems to be at the very least, highly confused.

With a big flag waving rebuttal it gets interesting and is well worth reading, there is some amusement here.

The biggest issue right now is that Google Ads, for good or bad are a hallmark of how small blogs make money, short of anything else there really is not other way for a blog to make money, even if it is just enough to pay the bills. Few if any get rich off of Google Ads. Calling them deceptive, then altering reality to make it look like the site was an “adsense ready” splog is also not quite what people were thinking when they hit the unofficial craigs list blog.

We are dealing with yet another group who does not get it, the sad part is that we are dealing with Craigs list, which over time has become important to people to find things. It is one of the few ways to find things that are interesting in the local area, and is so much easier than plowing through newspaper ads.

Being part of society now, craigslist has a duty to be careful in what they do, and need to keep their corporate appearance cleaner than it has been over the last couple of days. With craigs list being used to cover up crime, prostitution, and other things, they have more immediate important things to do, than go after the folks who are running an unofficial blog.

Every major company has an unofficial blog, from Microsoft and Mini-Microsoft, to Google, to Yahoo, and just about everyone else. This is one of those, need to find a way to co-exist rather than bludgeon each other to death.

Using lies, deception, and stupidity will not further the aims of either side, which is going to end up being one of “we all need to try to get along here”.

Keywords: craigslist, craigs, list, official blog, unofficial blog, money, google, ads, adsense, deception, deceptive, money