Stay away from doing this. I built a small business doing real-time alerts on CL... | Hacker News

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IanDrake on July 17, 2016 | parent | context | favorite | on: Ask HN: Craigslist and crawlers

Stay away from doing this. I built a small business doing real-time alerts on CL and eventually got a C&D letter from their lawyers. I gave up.

I got around IP restrictions by essential having SETI like software running on my client's computers.

They will threaten you saying you're committing a felony by violating the CFAA. They are insane, but have deep pockets.

After I shut down, others stood up against CL's ridiculous claims and lost. Search for 3taps.com and padmapper.com to learn more.

kinkdr on July 17, 2016 [–]

Wow! Thanks for the info. So sad that they lost. How is this not illegally thwarting of competition?

I wonder how can they claim that what you did was illegal or against their TOS, but what search engines are doing is not.

I guess I am lucky I didn't spend too much time on this. Thanks again!

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