Legal Question in Technology Law in California

Irresponsible, malicious, unprovoked flagging and removal of craigslist ad

Hello, This is only part of a letter I sent to craigslist. Please advise me on what to do.

Attn: Legal and Abuse depts at craigslist:

I have a HTML ad for my business on the pets section I have had someone, some people continually removing it by flagging it. I have written many times as I stated in the first paragraph to resolve it and simply re-post it. This posting has no foul, vulgar, inappropriate language or images that I can interpret as such. The ad was written for me in HTML about 4-6 weeks ago and within the first 7-10 days of the ad being on the Pets section it started being flagged and removed.

It is now taking several hours of my time and clients away from me. I am seeking your attention of a cease and assist end to this. I have tried to be patient and laugh this off, I have written many times to abuse that if there are any improper or unreasonable words, phrases, pictures I will remove them immediately without hassle. In my opinion, this is now malicious and the circumstances are irrational and I need your support to contact whoever is doing this as well as their ISP and stop this.

This is now causing me stress as well as lose hours and clients. Please reply.


Asked on 3/25/08, 7:10 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys
Jonas Grant Law Office of Jonas M. Grant, A.P.C.

Re: Irresponsible, malicious, unprovoked flagging and removal of craigslist ad

Your ad may violate CL terms of use section 7-m, among perhaps others. http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use.html 7m seems to indicate that commercial ads are not to be posted in "pets", only in "services".

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Answered on 3/26/08, 12:27 am
Edward Hoffman Law Offices of Edward A. Hoffman

Re: Irresponsible, malicious, unprovoked flagging and removal of craigslist ad

Unless the user agreement says otherwise, Craigslist is not obligated to protect your unpaid ad (or anyone else's) from being flagged and removed. When you post on that site you agree to its procedures. Those procedures include the prospect of being flagged. If you don't like the way things work on Craigslist, don't advertise there.

You have no property interest in having an ad on Craigslist, nor are you entitled to keep your ad up under any other legal theory I can think of. If the removal of your ad does not deprive you of any rights you have no legal grounds to complain.

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Answered on 3/25/08, 7:23 pm


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