Craigslist made good on its promise to go after PadMapper if it
continued using Craigslist content on its site. The online classifieds
company filed a lawsuit in San Francisco’s federal court on Friday
against both PadMapper and the data harvester it uses — 3taps.
“For their own commercial benefit, defendants 3Taps and PadMapper
are unlawfully and unabashedly mass-harvesting and redistributing
postings entrusted by Craigslist users to their local Craigslist sites,”
reads the complaint filed by Craigslist. “This exploitation of
Craigslist content undermines the integrity of local Craigslist
communities, ultimately harming both Craigslist and its users.”
The battle began in June when Craigslist sent PadMapper a
cease-and-desist letter that claimed the app violated its terms of use.
PadMapper collects all listings around a specific city or ZIP code from
Craigslist and other services and displays them on a Google map,
allowing users to search by area, apartment size, and rental price. When
users click on the listing, PadMapper redirects them back to the
original Craigslist posting.
