| One of the great success stories of the internet boom over the last 15 years in California is Craigslist. I was an early user back in the late 1990s when it was still primarily a San Francisco-based classified ad network run by its founder, Craig Newmark. Since that time Craigslist has become one of THE leading marketplaces for the exchange of goods and services, whether it's finding or selling an apartment, a job, a used car, or a sex partner.
Earlier this decade, that success attracted the attention of the other successful Bay Area online marketplace, eBay, and its then-CEO, Meg Whitman. eBay and Craigslist explored a partnership. One never materialized, but the information and stock that was exchanged is at the root of a Delaware trial this week where eBay and Craigslist are suing each other - and where Meg Whitman is testifying:
Whitman, a Republican candidate for California governor, was the first witness in a trial that began Monday in Delaware, pitting eBay Inc. and Craigslist.
EBay claims that Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster improperly acted to dilute eBay's minority interest after a falling out in 2007. Craigslist claims in a countersuit that eBay used its stake to gain information to help it form a competing classified service, Kijiji....
Although eBay examined Craigslist's financial data and Web site metrics before it acquired a 28 percent stake in the company in 2004, Whitman denied that eBay officials later misused confidential Craigslist data to benefit Kijiji.
Asked by eBay attorney Michael Rhodes whether she was aware of any effort by eBay to surreptitiously acquire the "secret sauce" of ingredients that spelled business success for Craigslist, Whitman simply responded, "No."
The rest of the article makes clear that eBay wanted to buy out Craigslist and, if that failed, run a competing service that could seize market share from the wildly successful service.
That's the mentality eMeg wants to bring to California's government: stifling innovation, using the power of money and the courts to smack down a successful, populist competitor. It should also cause Californians to ask for whose benefit she would run this state: for the small entrepreneuers like Craigslist, or for the large corporate behemoths like eBay. |
