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Wanna buy a cute, cuddly Shih-tzu? How about a 1993 Chevy truck? A three-bedroom, two-bath house in Maryland?

Think Wal-Mart.

Wait a second before you decide the big-box retailer has gone gonzo with the concept of selling everything under the sun. It's actually testing the waters with a beta of free online classified ads.

The site, launched last week and powered by Oodle.com, carries more than 40 million listings because it taps into Oodle.com's already-existing postings. Start-up Oodle.com aggregates listings from more than 80,000 local and national sites.

Wal-Mart's free service allows sellers and buyers to post and search for items in seven categories and in major U.S. cities.

The effort is a direct challenge to Craigslist, which offers free ads with the exceptions of job postings in some cities and brokered apartment listings in New York City. However, the two services aren't identical.

Advertisers can pay Oodle.com for higher placement on search results or via an auction-based system.

A report in The Wall Street Journal notes that Wal-Mart has piloted programs in the past before ultimately deciding against keeping them for the long haul. Movie downloads was one of them.

For a bit of entertainment, check out the list of items that can't be sold via Wal-Mart's classifieds.

UPDATE (3:50 p.m.):To include eBay response.

Craigslist, the Web's No.1 online classified site, has filed a lawsuit against eBay, in a move that will surprise few.

According to a copy of the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in California Superior Court in San Francisco, Craigslist accuses eBay of unfair competition, misappropriation of proprietary information, false advertising, and breach of fiduciary duty. Craigslist has asked the court to force eBay to surrender its interest in the company.

The two companies have been circling each other ever since eBay, which is a minority shareholder in Craigslist, opened a U.S. version of Kijiji, a Craigslist competitor. The hostilities between the Web's top auctioneer and classifieds section were kept quiet until last month when eBay filed a lawsuit against Craigslist alleging that the company tried to dilute eBay's 28 percent share.

The move was designed by Craigslist's founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster to remove eBay from Craigslist's board of directors, eBay alleged in its suit.

On Tuesday, eBay issued a statement: "We regret that Craigslist felt compelled to resort to unfounded and unsubstantiated claims in order to divert attention from actions by Craigslist's board" adding that Craigslist and eBay always agreed that the two sides have the "absolute right to compete with each other."

The two sides have coexisted relatively peacefully since August 2004, when eBay bought a minority interest in Craigslist. Last summer, when eBay launched Kijiji, Buckmaster told CNET News.com that he wasn't worried about having a competitor sitting on the board. His attitude changed just weeks after when he asked eBay to sell its position in the company, according to court documents filed by eBay.

Meg Whitman, eBay's then CEO, declined to sell but the reasons for Buckmaster's change of heart were outlined in Craigslist's suit.

In the months leading up to the U.S. launch of Kijiji, "eBay used its shareholder status to plant on Craigslist's board of directors the individual responsible for launching and/or operating Kijiji," Craigslist said in its suit.

Craigslist also said that eBay has "hounded" Craigslist managers with "improper demands for confidential Craigslist information, which could be used for anticompetitive reasons."

How would you like having one of your main competitors sitting on your board?

That's the position Craigslist found itself in after eBay bought a 28 percent share of the online classified publication in August 2004. The relationship was cordial until last July 3, when eBay launched a U.S.-version of Kijiji, its own classified Web site and Craigslist competitor.

I thought back to that day when I heard eBay had filed a lawsuit this week against Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster. The online auction service alleged that the men tried to strip eBay of its rights as a Craigslist minority shareholder and attempted to dilute its ownership stake.

When Kijiji launched in the U.S., I asked Newmark and Buckmaster: "Isn't it weird revealing your company's secrets to a huge rival, one who just happens to sit on your board?"

Both men downplayed the problems, but Buckmaster wrote what now appears to be a poignant e-mail: "I'm not a legal expert but I think it's safe to assume (eBay) will continue to conduct themselves appropriately with respect to their responsibilities to Craigslist."

Less than two weeks later, Buckmaster changed his tune and would ask eBay to sell its Craigslist shares. The question now is what made him change his mind so quickly.

To his credit, Greg Sterling, of consultancy Sterling Market Intelligence, whom I interviewed for the July 3 story, predicted there would be trouble. Speaking then about eBay's position as a Craigslist board member as well as a competitor Sterling said: "There is definitely a conflict of interest."

Anybody who has ever heard Newmark speak knows how much the online classifieds publication means to him. He has never given any indication that he is interested in cashing out. According to the lawsuit, Newmark once said: "Death is my exit strategy."

But Newmark's desire to keep control of Craigslist led him and Buckmaster to violate eBay's rights, the auctioneer alleges.

After reading the 29-page complaint, the positions of both sides comes through clear. Newmark and Buckmaster are uncomfortable with one of their main competitors sitting on their board, and eBay makes no secret of its desire to gain control of Craigslist.

Their positions were revealed in correspondence last year between Buckmaster and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

Last July, just a week after eBay launched a U.S. version of Kijiji, Buckmaster wrote to Whitman: "we are no longer comfortable having eBay as a shareholder and wish to explore options for our repurchase, or for otherwise finding a new home for these shares."

Whitman wouldn't hear of it.

"We are so happy with our relationship with the company," Whitman wrote back, "that we could neither imagine...parting with our shareholding in the company under any foreseeable circumstances. Quite to the contrary, we would welcome the opportunity to acquire the remainder of the company we do not already own."

A judge will decide whether Buckmaster and Newmark violated eBay's rights when it made moves that eBay alleges were aimed at limiting its ability to sell its Craigslist stake, diluted its shares to less than 25 percent and prevented eBay from appointing board members.

The auctioneer also accuses Buckmaster and Newmark of violating their fiduciary duty.

The mystery over what prompted eBay to sue Craigslist last week appears to be solved.

Apparently eBay feels that its ownership stake in Craigslist was unfairly reduced following eBay's launch of rival online classifieds service Kijiji, which went live overseas in 2005 and in the U.S. in 2007, according to the 26-page lawsuit filed in Delaware's Court of Chancery and made available by eBay on Wednesday.

According to the heavily redacted, public copy of the complaint, which names Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist views Kijiji as a competitive activity that cancels some shareholder rights that eBay acquired in 2004 when it bought a stake in Craigslist.

In response to that, Craigslist reorganized its stock structure in January, reducing eBay's stake in the online classified site from 28.04 percent to 24.85 percent. The reduction mean that eBay loses the ability to elect a director.

However, eBay feels Craigslist overstepped its rights and has filed suit over the diluting of its stake.

"The original agreement between the two parties always envisioned that there could be competitive activity," eBay spokeswoman Kim Rubey told the Associated Press.

The lawsuit also discloses that Meg Whitman, who was CEO of eBay at the time, offered to buy the remainder of Craigslist in a letter to Craigslist in July 2007. Whitman's letter was in response to a letter Buckmaster sent that expressed "'negative' feelings toward eBay's launch of Kijiji," and that stated "we are no longer comfortable having eBay as a shareholder."

Whitman responded by saying that eBay had taken steps to "firewall off" its Kijiji operations from the corporate management of its equity stake in Craigslist, according to the suit.

She went on to say that eBay was "so happy" with its relationship with Craigslist that "we would welcome the opportunity to acquire the remainder of (the company) we do not already own whenever you and (Newmark) feel it would be appropriate," according to the lawsuit.

Craigslist plans to make a formal response to the complaint in the next few weeks, the company said on its blog.

"Sadly, we have an uncomfortably conflicted shareholder in our midst, one that is obsessed with dominating online classifieds for the purpose of maximizing its own profits," Craigslist's blog said.

Craigslist has responded to a lawsuit filed by eBay, noting that it "came to us out of the blue," according to a posting on its craigslist blog Tuesday.

The popular online classified-ad site issued its response after eBay on Tuesday filed a lawsuit, alleging that its 28.4 percent stake in Craigslist was diluted by more than 10 percent in January. eBay, which acquired its minority stake in 2004, submitted its lawsuit under seal and, as a result, few details are readily available.

Craigslist said it was surprised by the action, stating that eBay had not attempted to discuss the matter with the company prior to filing its complaint.

"Coming from a shareholder that views craigslist as a prime competitor, filing suit without so much as mentioning these assertions beforehand seems unethical, and hints at ulterior motives," Craigslist notes in its blog.

And what ulterior motives could Craigslist be referring to? The company alleges: "eBay has absolutely no reason to feel threatened here - unless of course they're contemplating a hostile takeover of craigslist, or the sale of eBay's stake in craigslist to an unfriendly party. In which case, they're out of luck."

Craigslist, however, is not a publicly traded company, so a "hostile takeover" is a less likely route. eBay selling its stake to another party may be something worth keeping an eye on, given that's how eBay came into its Craigslist stake in 2004.

WASHINGTON--Night-vision cameras and camouflage gear are probably available at your local Wal-Mart. But congressional leaders on Thursday voiced dismay at reports that "sensitive" military-issue equipment is being resold, potentially to terrorists, at Web sites like eBay and Craigslist and suggested new laws are necessary to ban that practice.

Among the dozen items that mostly "undercover" government investigators purchased during a yearlong investigation of those two leading sites were F-14 fighter jet antennas (only Iran currently operates F-14s, the committee noted), night vision goggles, infrared tape worn by troops to "differentiate friend from foe," a complete military-issue Army combat uniform, body armor, and "Meals, Ready to Eat" (MREs). (Click here for the entire Government Accountability Office report (PDF).)

Right now, it's not necessarily illegal to sell those goods, either online or offline, although the military does have regulations restricting how some of them are disposed.

"It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to understand the troubling nature of some of these items being sold online," said Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.), chairman of a House of Representatives national security subcommittee that called for the investigation.

Tierney cited an episode about a year ago when insurgents dressed in American combat uniforms raided a security post in Iraq and killed five American soldiers, although it's not clear how they obtained those uniforms.

Moreover, the committee leaders bristled at the thought of seeing taxpayer-funded equipment resold for a profit, when it could be used by troops in combat.

By calling Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and eBay government relations chief Tod Cohen to Washington for the hearing, the subcommittee seemed to be preparing to place those executives in the hot seat. But the tone of that questioning was actually quite cordial. At the end of the panel, Tierney even praised the companies for "trying very hard" to keep sensitive military goods off their sites and acknowledged the rules of the road aren't the most clear.

Both Buckmaster and Cohen said they both supported the idea of developing clear rules outlining what is and isn't legal to sell, although Cohen emphasized that any new rules must apply not only online but offline as well. Buckmaster, for his part, suggested in response to a question that perhaps a law could be "passed banning sale of any U.S. military-issued item that's, say, less than 50 years old."

Tierney said he could understand why the sites would feel "constrained" telling their users they can't sell such goods when it's not explicitly illegal to do so. "It's sort of amazing to me we haven't had a law banning sales" of those items, he remarked.

Rather than the Internet companies, Defense Department officials endured much of the heat from politicians. Tierney began by accusing the officials of failing to be be cooperative about coming to testify before his committee. He repeatedly suggested they don't have adequate control over their inventory, highlighting particular concerns over military uniforms being sold online.

Alan Estevez, a deputy under secretary of defense, said that at a "macro level," he thinks the military's policies are working well, with only a minority of its members breaking its internal equipment rules. Besides, it's currently legal to sell body armor and night-vision goggles, although there are some restrictions on exporting them, Estevez said. Nor is it illegal to sell military uniforms, which soldiers buy from American companies, often out of their own pockets, he noted.

"I certainly agree having someone dress up as a U.S. military member is something we need to control from a force protection issue," Estevez said. "But a uniform in and of itself does not gain access to any facility."

Sarah Finnecum, director of the U.S. Army's supply and maintenance directorate, said soldiers are responsible for turning in gear they're issued--such as body armor vests and night-vision goggles--when they're no longer using it and to compensate the government for its cost if they don't. But as for their "personal items of clothing," she said she thought it would be "very hard to tell (soldiers) that you can't resell that item when they've purchased it with their own resources."

eBay, Craigslist weigh in
Controversy over reselling military equipment is hardly new. In recent years, the same subcommittee determined that the Defense Department itself was selling top-grade chemical protective suits and items that could be used to make a biological warfare laboratory to the public. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), the subcommittee's ranking member, said he was concerned that the military doesn't have a good enough system in place for keeping tabs on its inventory.

Charles Beardall, the Department of Defense's deputy inspector general for investigations, said his agency has been actively investigating such sales since the early 1990s, and such investigations compose 20 percent of its caseload.

But Gregory Kutz, who led the GAO's investigation, said he was troubled to find how "easy" it is now for anyone procure such equipment online, and he suggested e-commerce sites should be doing more to stop it.

"eBay prohibits sales of used cosmetics, while latest in military body armor is available to anybody with a credit card," he told the panel. "Our sodliers deserve better than to have their own technology used against them on the battlefield."

Most of the equipment the GAO purchased was stolen, Kutz said. One eBay seller--a U.S. Army soldier based in South Korea--is serving a three-and-a-half year prison sentence after the GAO turned him over to the Army for selling mass quantities of meals-ready-to-eat illegally.

eBay's Cohen said he believes his company has "the most proactive tools" to flag and prevent such sales of any major ecommerce company, with more than 2,000 employees working around the world to prevent "all forms of illegal behavior" on its sites.

The company maintains a policy that prohibits sales of 60 items, including weapons and many classes of military items, and it works regularly with law enforcement and military investigators to develop keyword filters designed to detect listings that violate its policy, Cohen said. Last year, for instance, eBay reviewed more than 4,000 listings flagged by its body armor filters and removed about one fourth of them, determining the remaining flagged listings were false positives.

Craigslist's Buckmaster also defended his company's procedures, saying that because tens of millions of site viewers have the option to flag listings for deletion, his company actually has a stronger anti-fraud police force than any Web site "on Earth." He also noted that his 25-person company has no incentive to let sales of questionable goods remain on its site because it earns "absolutely nothing" in commission or otherwise from their sales.

Buckmaster went a step further, challenging Web sites that profit off of sales of military goods to donate 100 percent of any revenue related to those sales to a charity, "preferably one that provides aid to our military veterans."

Craigslist could see revenue of more than $80 million this year, which would be a 47 percent rise from an estimated $55 million for 2007, according to projections in a new report from consultancy Classified Intelligence.

The popular mostly free online classifieds site could easily double that amount, and better compete against eBay's Kijiji.com and other rivals, if it added more fees, the report concluded. (eBay also owns 25 percent of Craigslist.)

"They could get up to $200 million in a heartbeat and it would improve Craigslist with very little backlash, but they're not about the money, so it is irrelevant to them," Peter Zollman, founder of Classified Intelligence, said in an interview.

Because it is private, Craigslist isn't required to publicly disclose its financial results.

Asked to comment on the report, Chief Executive Jim Buckmaster said the company doesn't comment on "financial guesstimates."

Classified Intelligence says it came up with the revenue estimates by studying postings for one week in January and one week in March and then doing the math.

Craigslist is free to use, except it costs $25 to $75 for recruitment listings in some markets and $10 for apartment ads placed by brokers in New York City.

The site is by far the leader in the online classifieds space, exceeding 9 billion page views, 30 million new classified ads and 2 million new job listings each month, according to the report. The number of unique visitors to Craigslist was 26.6 million in January, up 75 percent from a year earlier, according to ComScore.

The report also referred to Craigslist's "sleaze factor" and said the anonymity it allows is attractive to criminals, including thieves who post fake ads that someone else's property is free, people using the site offering or seeking prostitution and end up getting carjacked and even murder-for-hire.

However, Zollman acknowledged that even traditional newspaper classifieds were used by fraudsters and other criminals. And at least some of the criminal cases have been solved after authorities traced the IP address to the computer used to post the listing.

In the recently launched official Craigslist blog, a post from March 29 says the site has implemented a phone verification system for its "erotic services" category which helped cut ads for that category by 80 percent.

"Misuse of Craigslist for unlawful purposes is unacceptable to us, and we will continue to look for additional ways to eliminate it, while preserving full functionality for the overwhelming majority of well-intentioned law abiding Craigslist users, including those who use our "erotic services" category," Buckmaster wrote.

Most folks recall the story about the Tacoma, Wash., house that was trashed after a woman posted an ad on Craigslist telling people to "please help yourself to anything on the property."

Well, some mischief maker in Jacksonville, Ore., apparently decided to re-enact the Tacoma house-trashing scheme. According to this Associated Press story, Robert Salisbury came home to nearly 30 people rummaging through his barn and front porch. Not only that, when he told the trespassers to give him back his belongings, he was rebuffed.

"I informed them I was the owner, but they refused to give the stuff back," Salisbury told the AP. "They showed me the Craigslist printout and told me they had the right to do what they did."

The Craigslist post advertised all of Salisbury's stuff--even his horse--as free for the taking. The woman who showed up to take his horse finally started to feel uneasy about the whole deal when she realized that the horse looked perfectly healthy, and well, seemed to actually belong to someone. She left a note on the door and then decided to call Salisbury to make sure that the ad was legit.

What's shocking is that of the dozens of people who pilfered his property, she was the only one to catch wind of the scheme. Come on, people.

By the time the police showed up, the plunderers had already crammed their cars full of Salisbury's stuff and taken off.

Investigators are still trying to track down the person who posted the ad--and it could likely be someone Salisbury knows. The Tacoma incident, after all, was fueled by a family feud.

Craigslist.org can't be held liable for discriminatory ads posted on its site, according to a court ruling released Friday.

A group of Chicago lawyers had sued the online classifieds site over real-estate ads that stated discriminatory preferences such as "no minorities" or "no children." The group, the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, argued that such ads are prohibited under the Fair Housing Act and that Craigslist should be held liable for allowing them to be posted on its Web site. Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, likening Craigslist to courier services such as FedEx or UPS, which do not read or screen the messages they deliver. Easterbrook said it would be expensive and problematic for Craigslist to filter messages before they were posted.

The ruling (PDF) is good news for the many Web sites that host public forums, giving them further legal protections against liability claims based on content posted by their users, but is an obvious setback for proponents of fair housing online and off.