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 Logo used since 1995 | |
 Screenshot of the main page on January 26, 2008 | |
| Type of business | Private |
|---|---|
Type of site | Classifieds,forums |
| Available in | English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese |
| Founded | 1995; 30 years ago (1995) (incorporated 1999) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California ,U.S.[1] |
| Area served | 570 cities in 70 countries |
| Founder(s) | Craig Newmark |
| Key people | Jim Buckmaster (CEO) |
| Services | Web communications |
| Revenue | US$660M[2] |
| Employees | 50 (2017) |
| URL | craigslist.org |
| Advertising | None |
| Registration | Optional[3] |
| Launched | 1995; 30 years ago (1995) |
| Current status | Active |
| Written in | Perl[4] |
Craigslist (stylized ascraigslist) is a privately held American company[5] operating aclassified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services,community service,gigs,résumés, and discussion forums.
Craig Newmark began the service in 1995 as an email distribution list to friends, featuring local events in theSan Francisco Bay Area. It became a web-based service in 1996 and expanded into other classified categories. It started expanding to other U.S. and Canadian cities in 2000. In 2023 Craigslist listed seven hundred cities in 70 countries on its website and generated 560 million visits per month.[6] Despite such global presence, 90% of the website visitors are from the USA.[7] Nevertheless, according toAlexa, Craigslist was the #19 most visited website in the United States in 2022 and #16 in the World in 2023.[8]
Having observed people helping one another in friendly, social, and trusting communal ways on the Internet viathe WELL,MindVox andUsenet, and feeling isolated as a relative newcomer to San Francisco, Craigslist founderCraig Newmark decided to create something similar for local events.[9][10] In early 1995, he began an email distribution list to friends. Most of the early postings were submitted by Newmark and were notices of social events of interest to software and Internet developers living and working in theSan Francisco Bay Area.
The number of subscribers and postings grew rapidly via manual advertising. There was no moderation and Newmark was surprised when people started using the mailing list for non-event postings.[11] People trying to get technical positions filled found that the list was a good way to reach people with the skills they were looking for. This led to the addition of a jobs category. User demand for more categories caused the list of categories to grow. The initial technology encountered some limits, so byJune 1995Majordomo had been installed, and the mailing list "Craigslist" resumed operations. Community members started asking for a web interface. Newmark registered "craigslist.org", and the website went live in 1996.[11]
In the fall of 1998, the name "List Foundation" was introduced, and Craigslist started transitioning to the use of this name. InApril 1999, when Newmark learned of other organizations called "List Foundation", the use of this name was dropped. Craigslist was incorporated as a private for-profit company in 1999.[9] Around the time of these events, Newmark realized the site was growing so fast that he could stop working as a software engineer and devote his full attention to running Craigslist. ByApril 2000, nine employees were working out of Newmark's San Francisco apartment.[12]
In January 2000, current CEOJim Buckmaster joined the company as lead programmer andCTO. Buckmaster contributed to the site's multi-city architecture, search engine, discussion forums, flagging system, self-posting process, homepage design,personals categories, and best-of-Craigslist feature. He was promoted to CEO inNovember 2000.[13]
The website expanded into nine more U.S. cities in 2000, four in 2001 and 2002, and 14 in 2003. On August 1, 2004, Craigslist began charging $25 to post job openings on the New York and Los Angeles pages. On the same day, a new section called "Gigs" was added, where low-cost and unpaid jobs can be posted for free.
In March 2008,Spanish,French,Italian,German, andPortuguese became the first non-English languages Craigslist supported.[14] As of August 9, 2012, over 700 cities and areas in 70 countries had Craigslist sites.[15] Some Craigslist sites cover large regions instead of individual metropolitan areas—for example, theU.S. states ofDelaware andWyoming, theColorado Western Slope, theCaliforniaGold Country, and theUpper Peninsula of Michigan.[16] Craigslist sites for some large cities, such asLos Angeles, also include the ability for the user to focus on a specific area of a city (such as central Los Angeles).
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The site serves more than 20 billion[17] page views per month, putting it in 72nd place overall among websites worldwide and 11th place overall among websites in the United States (perAlexa.com onJune 28, 2016), with more than49.4 million unique monthly visitors in the United States alone (perCompete.com onJanuary 8, 2010). With more than80 million new classified advertisements each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium.[according to whom?][citation needed]
Back in 2009, the site received more than2 million new job listings each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world.[18][19] The 23 largest U.S. cities listed on the Craigslist home page collectively receive more than 300,000 postings per day just in the "for sale" and "housing" sections as of October 2011.[20] The classified advertisements range from traditional buy/sell ads and community announcements topersonal ads.
In 2009, Craigslist operated with a staff of 28 people.[21] By 2019 this number grew to 50 people. In that year alone the company made more than $1 billion in revenue, while charging only ca.5 US$ for most ads (the exact price depends on the type of ad and service/property location).[22][23]
In December 2006, at theUBS Global Media Conference in New York, Craigslist CEOJim Buckmaster toldWall Street analysts that Craigslist had little interest in maximizing profit, and instead preferred to help users find cars, apartments, jobs and dates.[24][25]
Craigslist's main source of revenue is paid job ads in select American cities. The company does not formally disclose financial or ownership information. Analysts and commentators have reported varying figures for its annual revenue, ranging from $10 million in 2004, $20 million in 2005, and$25 million in 2006 to possibly$150 million in 2007.[26][27][28]Fortune has described their revenue model as "quasi-socialist", citing their focus on features for users regardless of profitability.Eric Baker ofStubHub has described the site as a "potential gold mine of revenue if only it would abandon its communist manifesto."[26]
On August 13, 2004, Newmark announced on his blog that auction gianteBay had purchased a 25% stake in the company from a former employee.[29] Some fans of Craigslist expressed concern that this development would affect the site's longtime non-commercial nature. As of January 2024[update], there have been no substantive changes to the usefulness or the non-advertising nature of the site; neither banner ads, nor charges for a few services provided to businesses.
The company was believed to be owned principally by Newmark, Buckmaster, andeBay (the three board members). eBay owned approximately 25%, and Newmark is believed to own the largest stake.[16][28][30]
In April 2008,eBay announced it was suing Craigslist to "safeguard its four-year financial investment". eBay claimed that inJanuary 2008, Craigslist executives took actions that "unfairly diluted eBay's economic interest by more than 10%".[31] Craigslist filed a counter-suit inMay 2008 to "remedy the substantial and ongoing harm to fair competition" that Craigslist claimed was constituted by eBay's actions as Craigslist shareholders; the company claimed that it had used its minority stake to gain access to confidential information, which it then used as part of its competing serviceKijiji.[32][33]
On June 19, 2015, eBay Inc. announced that it would divest its stake back to Craigslist for an undisclosed amount, and settle its litigation with the company. The move came shortly before eBay's planned spin-off ofPayPal, and an effort to divest other units to focus on its core business.[32]
The Swedish luxury marketplace website Jameslist.com received a lawsuit filed on July 11, 2012,[34] which among unspecified damages also asked for a complete shutdown of Jameslist.com[35] As a consequence, the young company was forced to rename toJamesEdition.
As of 2012,mashup sites such as padmapper.com and housingmaps.com were overlaying Craigslist data withGoogle Maps and adding their own search filters to improve usability. In June 2012, Craigslist changed its terms of service to disallow the practice. In July 2012, Craigslist filed a lawsuit against padmapper.com.[36] Following the shutdown of Padmapper.com, some users complained that the service was useful to them and therefore should have remained intact.[37]
In December 2019, Craigslist introduced a platform foriOS and a beta version onAndroid.[38]
Craigslist is famous for its repeated refusal to update its website appearance. In 2025 it still features a 1995 'barebones' design, which became its most recognizable feature.[39]
Over the years Craigslist had become a very popular online destination for arranging fordates andsex.[40][41][42][43][44] The personals section allows for postings that are for "strictly platonic", "dating/romance", and "casual encounters".[40][41][43][44]
The site was considered particularly useful by lesbians and gay men seeking to make connections, because of the service's free and open nature and because of the difficulty of otherwise finding each other in more conservative areas.[45]
In 2005, San Francisco Craigslist'smen seeking men section was attributed to facilitating sexual encounters and was the second most common correlation tosyphilis infections.[45] The company has been pressured by San Francisco Department of Public Health officials, prompting Jim Buckmaster to state that the site has a very small staff and that the public "must police themselves".[45] The site has, however, added links toSan Francisco City Clinic andSTD forums.[45]
On March 22, 2018, Craigslist discontinued its "Personals" section in the United States in response to the passing of theStop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which removesSection 230 safe harbours for interactive services knowingly involved in illegal sex trafficking. The service stated that
US Congress just passed HR 1865, 'FOSTA', seeking to subject websites to criminal and civil liability when third parties (users) misuse online personals unlawfully. Any tool or service can be misused. We can't take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services, so we are regretfully taking craigslist personals offline. To the millions of spouses, partners, and couples who met through craigslist, we wish you every happiness![46]
Advertisements for "adult" (previously "erotic") services were initially given special treatment, then closed entirely onSeptember 4, 2010, following a controversy over claims by state attorneys general that the advertisements promotedprostitution.[47][48]
In 2002, a disclaimer was put on the "men seeking men", "casual encounters", "erotic services", and "rants and raves" boards to ensure that those who clicked on these sections were over the age of 18, but no disclaimer was put on the "men seeking women", "women seeking men" or "women seeking women" boards. As a response to charges of sex discrimination and negativestereotyping, Buckmaster explained that the company's policy is a response to user feedback requesting the warning on the more sexually explicit sections, including "men seeking men".[49]
On May 13, 2009, Craigslist announced that it would close theerotic services section, replacing it with anadult services section to be reviewed by Craigslist employees. This decision came after allegations by several U.S. states that the erotic services ads were being used for prostitution.[50]
On September 4, 2010, Craigslist closed the adult services section of its website in the United States. The site initially replaced the adult services page link with the word "censored" in white-on-black text. The site received criticism and complaints from attorneys general that the section's ads were facilitating prostitution and child sex trafficking.[51][52]
The adult services section link was still active in countries outside of the U.S.[53] Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney for theElectronic Frontier Foundation, said, "Craigslist isn't legally culpable for these posts, but the public pressure has increased and Craigslist is a small company." Brian Carver, attorney and assistant professor at UC Berkeley, said that legal threats could have a chilling effect on online expression. "If you impose liability on Craigslist, YouTube and Facebook for anything their users do, then they're not going to take chances. It would likely result in the takedown of what might otherwise be perfectly legitimate free expression."[54]
OnSeptember 8, 2010, the "censored" label and its dead link to adult services were completely removed.[55][56]
Craigslist announced on September 15, 2010, that it had closed its adult services in the United States; however, it defended its right to carry such ads. Free speech and some sex crime victim advocates criticized the removal of the section, saying that it threatened free speech and that it diminished law enforcement's ability to track criminals. However, the removal was applauded by many state attorneys general and some other groups fighting sex crimes. Craigslist said that there is some indication that those who posted ads in the adult services section are posting elsewhere. Sex ads had cost $10 initially and it was estimated they would have brought in $44 million in 2010 had they continued.[57][58] In the four months following the closure, monthly revenue from sex ads on six other sites (primarilyBackpage) increased from $2.1 to $3.1 million, partly due to price increases.[59]
The company has tried to fight prostitution and sex trafficking, and in 2015,Craig Newmark received an award from the FBI for cooperation with law enforcement to fight human trafficking.[60][61][62][63][64]
OnDecember 19, 2010, after pressure from Ottawa and several provinces, Craigslist closed 'Erotic Services' and 'Adult Gigs' from its Canadian website, even though prostitution wasnot itself illegal in Canada at the time.[65]
When theFight Online Sex Trafficking Act was signed into law on April 11, 2018, Craigslist chose to close its "Personals" section within all US domains to avoid civil lawsuits.[66] About their decision, Craigslist stated "Any tool or service can be misused. We can't take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services."[67][68]
Craigslist has a user flagging system to report illegal and inappropriate postings.
Flagging does not require account login or registration, and can be done anonymously by anyone.[69] Postings are subject to automated removal when a certain number of users flag them. The number of flags required for a posting's removal is dynamically variable and remains unknown to all but Craigslist staff.[69] Some users allege that flagging may also occur as acts of vandalism by groups of individuals at different ISPs, but no evidence of this has ever been shown. Flagging can also alert Craigslist staff to blocks of ads requiring manual oversight or removal.[69][better source needed][70]
Flagging is also done by Craigslist itself (Craigslist's automated systems) and the posts will never appear on the search results.[71]
Craigslist includes abarter option in its "for sale" section. This growing trade economy has been documented on the television programBarter Kings and the blogone red paperclip.[72][73]
From its earliest days Craigslist faced criticism for allowing illegal/unethical activities and for poor protection of buyers and sellers. Some well-recognized types of illegal activities comprise:counterfeit goods,advanced fee fraud andbuyer-seller collusion.[74] In "counterfeit goods" scam, the seller uses a marketplace to sell illegal or counterfeit products, while misrepresenting them as legitimate goods. In "advanced fee fraud" the seller tricks the buyer's into making an unsecured (i.e. not via acredit card or another legitimateescrow service) payment before receiving the product/service.[75] In "buyer-seller collusion" a fraudulent buyer uses the victim's payment information (such as acredit card number) to buy fake goods from a colluding fake seller, thus getting the money from the victim and evading the traditional credit card safeguard practices.
In its defense Craigslist successfully usedSection 230 of the USCommunications Decency Act (CDA), which states that websites cannot be held liable for the actions of their users. Craigslist also successfully challenged a 2017FOSTA amendment to theCDA, which created an exception allowing legal actions against a platform,if its users violate federal sex-trafficking laws (seeDart v. Craigslist, Inc.).
In July 2005, theSan Francisco Chronicle criticized Craigslist for allowing ads from dog breeders, stating that this could encourage the over-breeding and irresponsible selling of pit bulls in the Bay Area.[76] According to Craigslist'sterms of service, the sale of pets is prohibited, though re-homing with small adoption fees is acceptable.[77]
In addition to allowing illegal activities and to poor customer protection, Craigslist has been numerous times accused of unfair competition.[citation needed] For example, in January 2006, theSan Francisco Bay Guardian published an editorial claiming that Craigslist could threaten the business of local alternative newspapers.[78]
L. Gordon Crovitz, writing forThe Wall Street Journal, criticized the company for using lawsuits "to prevent anyone from doing to it what it did to newspapers", contrary to the spirit of the website, which describes itself as a "noncommercial nature, public service mission, and noncorporate culture".[79]This article was a reaction to lawsuits from Craigslist, which Crovitz says were intended to prevent competition. Craigslist filed a trademark lawsuit against the Swedish luxury marketplace website Jameslist.com on July 11, 2012,[80] forcing the company to rename toJamesEdition.
In 2012, Craigslist sued PadMapper, a site that hoped to improve the user interface for browsing housing ads, and 3Taps, a company that helped PadMapper obtain data from Craigslist, inCraigslist v. 3Taps. This led users to criticize Craigslist for trying to shut down a service that was useful to them.[37]
In 2001, the company started the Craigslist Foundation,[81] a§501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that offered free and low-cost events and online resources to promotecommunity building at all levels. It accepts charitable donations, and rather than directly funding organizations, it produces "face-to-face events and offers online resources to help grassroots organizations get off the ground and contribute real value to the community".
In 2012, the Craigslist Foundation closed, with charity work moving to support charitable funds.[82]
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