Last month, Padmapper's future was endangered when Craigslisthit it with a cease and decist order, forcing the apartment hunting site to drop Craigslist's millions of key listings. PadMapper cooperated with the order for a while, but then it decided to try a workaround that would let it repost Craigslist data without actually pulling from the classified site's servers. Apparently, Craigslist didn't like that move very much, and now it's taking PadMapper and the data scraper it used, 3taps, to court.
Craigslist is accusing PadMapper and 3taps of copyright and trademark infringement, breach of contract and unfair competition. PadMapper owner Eric Dementhon says he regrets not being able to reach a more amicable agreement with his larger competitor. Craigslist licenses its data for use on mobile devices, but not on the Web, which is where PadMapper is based.
“I wish we had just been able to talk and reach a reasonable solution, but they weren’t willing to talk with me about it," DeMenthon said in a characteristically candid statement to AllThingsD. "I would have been willing to do quite a bit, including shutting down whatever they thought was competitive about the site.”
With the lawsuit, it seems clear that there's no hope reconciling these two. In fact, Craigslist would probably prefer that PadMapper simply ceased to exist.
[via AllThingsD]
