US Launches Criminal Probe in eBay-Craigslist Trade Secrets Case

angry tapir writes with an article in Tech World about the longstanding spat between eBay and Craigslist expanding from a civil case into criminal case. From the article: "The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into whether eBay executives broke the law and stole trade secrets while sitting on the board of Craigslist.org. The investigation is centered on the activities of eBay executives who managed the Craigslist relationship between 2004 and 2007, a period when eBay morphed from a US$30 million Craigslist investor, with a seat on its board of directors, into a direct competitor in the lucrative online classified advertising market."

Re:Uh...

[techsoldaten]

Methods for metric analysis, which is the core of Craigslists' valuation. They do a really good job at understanding who is coming to their site. This would be of interest to anyone looking to build an online community.

I had been waiting for this to come down. Something told me the board of CL had mangy ethics and I could see how this was a conflict of interest.

Re:IBM - Intel?

[Attila Dimedici]

The difference is that Craigslist was not (and is not) a publicly traded company, Intel was. Ebay got the shares in Craigslist by buying them from a disgruntled (former?) employee of Craigslist. The number of shares entitled Ebay to a seat on Craigslist's Board. Craigslist has since changed its rules concerning selling shares to prevent something similar from happening. At the time, there was evidence that Ebay was trying to buy Craigslist. When that plan was thwarted/abandoned Ebay started to build a competing classified ads section.