The court case between eBay and Craigslist is increasingly beginning to seem as if it was scripted by John Grisham. It's the little guy against the big machine.
Craigslist would like us to dedicate all our sympathy to its cause, as it describes its dealings with the big, bad wolf, aka eBay. Or, as Monday's court session heard, the big, bad she-wolf.
Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist's CEO, told the court that Garrett Price, an eBay executive, had written him an e-mail that waved a large rainbow-colored warning flag, according to a Reuters story.
"He said he needed to tell me there were two Meg Whitmans," Buckmaster told Craigslist's counsel in court, according to the report. "We had met and reached an agreement with Good Meg. There was another Meg, an Evil Meg. We would be best served to know that Meg could be a monster when she got angry and frustrated."
A monster? That nice lady who, in her run for governor, promises to make California solvent without resorting to punitive taxation or pumping iron? This is surely hard to believe.
The proceedings are being streamed live by the Courtroom View Network, and one wonders just what joy the network might bring Tuesday when eBay's no doubt friendly counsel attempts to hide his fangs from the Craigslist CEO, while simultaneously snipping at his vulnerable parts.
In case you had missed the cause of this kerfuffle, eBay is claiming that Craigslist illegally diluted its 28.4 percent shareholding by "self-dealing," underhand methods.
Craigslist is claiming that eBay made a promise not to start its own Craigslist-type site and then went right ahead and created Kijiji. It seems that such a promise did not appear in what some laypersons might describe as the written form, according to the Associated Press.
Buckmaster also declared that Whitman promised him that if any problems arose between the two companies--an e-mail was produced to the court on Monday in which an eBay executive described Craigslist people as being "definitely on another planet"--then eBay would sell its shares, according to Bloomberg.
"I believed that I could rely on her statements," Buckmaster told the court, Bloomberg said.
Just as Grisham protagonists seem slightly naive to the workings of the world, Buckmaster seems to want the court to believe that Craigslist were nice guys who couldn't imagine how beastly business people could be.
In many Grisham novels, the heroes flee to freedom in some lovely place, with enough money to enjoy the rest of their blissful lives.
Has that thought never crossed the minds of Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark? Just wondering.
When rich people sue rich people, it often seems that the only possible winners can be rich people.
Which perhaps doesn't engage the emotions of spectators quite as much as, say, when rich people are caught with their plus fours around their ankles.
Still, the current lawsuit between eBay and Craigslist does offer a small window into our own daily lives. You know, the one through which we decide whether we believe what someone is telling us.
This legal spatula is being flipped in Delaware Chancery Court, its essence revolving around how much of Craigslist eBay really owns. Is it 28.4 percent, on which they initially agreed in 2004? Or is it the 24 percent that appears to have emerged after what eBay believes was a "self-dealing" and underhand scheme by Craigslist to dilute the value of its stock?
eBay's executives have already protested both their innocence and niceness. On Thursday and Friday, it was the turn of Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster of Craigslist. (Oh, if you're in need of human fascination, it continues Monday and is being streamed live by the Courtroom View Network.)
So here we are having to decide who is, well, the nicest person, the one who isn't telling the odd fib or two.
Perhaps the most moving remark of the first couple of days came from former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who told the court that the moment she became concerned about the dealings between the two companies was when eBay founder Pierre Omidyar allegedly became frustrated with Craigslist.
"To be honest," she told the court, "I was starting to get concerned because really, nobody doesn't like Pierre."
And so we had eBay claiming the niceness higher ground. "We are sweet. We are lovely. We are kind to animals," seemed to be her refrain. The folks at Craigslist, though they might seem pleasantly libertarian at times, are not immune from a little folksiness of their own.
So when Newmark and Buckmaster took the stand, it was surely hard not to see them as the smaller, more idealistic Merry Men trying to avoid being slammed into the stocks by the big, bad Sheriff of Nottingham.
Newmark, he of the dour-colored suits and the slightly Elvis Costello-ish mien, sounded like Elvis at his lowest when he described how he felt betrayed by eBay.
He came to believe that his lady suitor's aim was not true. "eBay, specifically Meg Whitman, made commitments, and broke them," he told the court.
The Craigslist team, you see, became very concerned when eBay began to create its own classified site, with the slightly uncomfortable name Kijiji. Whitman, claimed Newmark, had promised exclusivity, but she was clearly playing around with Craig's confidential data and his feelings.
Buckmaster, Newmark's blessedly calm Friar Tuck, no doubt tugged at some heartstrings on Friday, when he described a correspondence between himself and Whitman.
On July 12, 2007, he allegedly wrote to the then-eBay CEO: "It is my sad duty to report that we are no longer comfortable having eBay as a shareholder." He went on to explain that Craigslist rather wanted to "explore options for our repurchase, or for otherwise finding a new home for these shares."
This all seemed like Whitman and her less than merry people were being dumped. Which is why you might be rendered somewhat insensate by her alleged reply: "We are so happy with our relationship with Craigslist that we could neither imagine doing anything to disturb our personal rapport with you or [Craigslist founder] Craig [Newmark], nor parting with our shareholding in Craigslist Inc. under any foreseeable circumstances."
She allegedly continued: "Quite to the contrary, we would welcome the opportunity to acquire the remainder of Craigslist Inc. we do not already own whenever you and Craig feel it would be appropriate."
Buckmaster told the court he found the cheery tone of this note to be "threatening."
So there you have it. Buckmaster continues with his possibly painful story on Monday. You, meanwhile, have all weekend to discern who might have slipped a little Rohypnol into their facts and who might be appealing to more fundamental human frailties.
You might also wonder what on earth these two sides were doing trying to have a relationship with each other. Somehow, it all seems a little like Angelina Jolie trying to get it on with Ross Perot.
In the wake of the murder of Craigslist-advertising masseuse Julissa Brisman, and the arrest of Philip Markoff, Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster of Craigslist gave interviews Friday to Martin Bashir of ABC's Nightline.
Their attitude was both defiant and a little uncomfortable.
Bashir asked Newmark whether he was a law-abiding citizen of America, to which the Craigslist founder said he was "very consistent" about that.
As the interviewer read out a few Craigslist ads and asked him if he thought they were ads for prostitution, Newmark replied: "Probably." He said that if there are ads of a criminal nature on the site, he wants help to get rid of them immediately.
Asked if Craigslist facilitates prostitution, Newmark said: "I wouldn't put it that way, no." Which did seem a little like the answer of a politician.
But when asked about whether, in the light of crime associated with Craigslist, he intended to make any changes to the site, perhaps closing down the Erotic Services section, Newmark leaned heavily on Craigslist's roots.
"The decisions we make on our site are consistently based on feedback from the entirety of the community," he said.
However, he did seem to leave the smallest of crack open for a change of heart: "That feedback changes over time."
Bashir then wondered whether the idea of donating proceeds from the Erotic Services section to charity might seem a little strange.
"Do you think," he asked Buckmaster, "that charities will welcome donations from adverts where people promise to beat each others' backsides till they bleed?"
Buckmaster replied, somewhat nervously: "We'll be making public the donations that are available to charities and they can contact us if they want to take advantage of that."
In this fascinating interview sequence, one could easily conclude that Craigslist wishes that the few in society would just stop behaving in a way that can affect so many so that Craiglist can just carry on with its business.
Unfortunately, the few in society aren't so easily persuaded.
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