by Nick Wingfield, Staff Writer, The Wall Street Journal
For months, Microsoft has jabbed at Apple with an, at times, baffling advertising campaign for Windows PCs. Now Microsoft may finally land a solid blow against its rival.
In a new chapter to its ad campaign that will begin airing during the NCAA basketball playoffs on CBS Thursday evening, Microsoft will begin hammering on a theme that could resonate in these times of economic hardship: how much less expensive Windows PCs are than Macs.
by Geoffrey Fowler, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Craigslist, the online classifieds juggernaut, has run afoul of authorities once again, over the ads in its adult section. On Thursday, the sheriff in Cook County, Ill., called the site the “largest source of prostitution in America” and filed a civil lawsuit to get Craigslist’s “erotic services” section shut down.
by Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Online dating site PlentyofFish announced plans to add a pay option aimed at customers who want to show that they’re serious about meeting someone.
PlentyofFish has long been a free site, which has made it hugely popular. It claims on its Web site that members will go on 18 million dates with each other this year.
If you’re the sheriff, aren’t you supposed to understand at least the basics of the law? Apparently not in Cook County, Ill. Sheriff Thomas Dart is now suing Craigslist because it’s “the single largest source of prostitution in the nation.” Of course, we’ve been through some of this before.
Craigslist has entered into an agreement with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Attorneys General of 40 states to enact measures that it claims are targeted toward fighting child exploitation, but largely focuses on reducing spam and (adult) prostitution.
by Therese Poletti, Senior Columnist, MarketWatch, Tech Tales
It is ironic that a company whose core business has been caught in a perpetual slowdown has seemingly set its sights on another business–one where the established leader gives away the bulk of its services for free. But that appears to be the case for the online auction pioneer, eBay Inc.
John Nagle writes in with a fascinating dissection of the ongoing battle between Craigslist and spammers. The back-and-forth nature of this battle is fascinating–and somewhat disturbing when you realize the lengths to which spammers will go to get spam onto Craigslist, and the extent to which an entire ecosystem of scammers and software providers seems to have been built up around this effort.
Craigslist today filed a counter-suit against eBay (EBAY) in state court in California, alleging unfair competition and a host of other misdeeds. The suits comes several weeks after eBay had sued Craigslist alleging that eBay’s stake in the online classified ad provider had been improperly diluted by the Craigslist board.
This is an ugly situation getting uglier by the minute.
There’s a jokey saying that people like to spout when they hear stories of people believing the most ridiculous things found on the Internet: “If it’s on the Internet, it must be true.” That saying certainly showed up in the story earlier this week about people ransacking and looting a house in Oregon after someone put up a post on Craigslist saying that the house had been abandoned and everything was free for the taking. When the owner came back to the house telling people to stop, they pointed to the Craigslist ad as “proof” that they could continue their looting. Hence, “if it’s on the Internet, it must be true.” However, in the aftermath of this event (which is actually a copycat from a similar event nearly a year ago), we’re seeing a different, but perhaps equally as common, fallacy come out: If it’s on the Internet, blame the service provider, rather than those actually responsible.
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