Craigslist Clarifies: It Wants to Be Paid to Get You Laid

Here's the backwards result of the legal crusade against Craigslist: The site never used to make money from its "erotic services" ads. But the service tells Valleywag that it's now planning to profit from porn. More »

Vancouver couple offers baby for sale on Craigslist

A Vancouver couple listed their week-old newborn for sale on Craigslist for $10,000, prompting a horrified user to call the police. When the cops arrived, they found the tyke breastfeeding and the parents claimed it was a hoax. Which didn't stop the authorities from confiscating the baby. Susan MacTavish Best issued the by-now boilerplate statement that reads "Misuse of Craigslist for illegal purposes is absolutely unacceptable to us." Those kooky Canadians just hate the free market. When they aren't unjustly subverting self-interest with their free health care, they're criminalizing the trade in human babies. Once Peter Thiel builds his Objectivist paradise at sea, expect him to make another fortune on PayBaby. (Photo by Badr Naseem)

Craigslist CEO pretends to be British for his PR girlfriend

We've heard of in-house PR, but this is ridiculous. Susan MacTavish Best, who is both the girlfriend of Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and his company's PR rep, is also a director of Glasshouse, a nonprofit which produces events meant to educate entrepreneurs. Educating entrepreneurs at an event tonight: Buckmaster. The fireside chat is meant to highlight U.K. Web entrepreneurs. Buckmaster's only plausible U.K. tie? His girlfriend, MacTavish Best, is British. All very cozy, and absurd. What we think really happened here: MacTavish Best couldn't come up with any other speakers, and Buckmaster filled in.

Has Craig Newmark quit Craigslist?

A fascinating tidbit buried in a story about Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin's allegations of child prostitution on Craigslist: Susan MacTavish Best, Craigslist spokeswoman and girlfriend of CEO Jim Buckmaster, claims that Craig Newmark "is no longer involved in the company's daily affairs," according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. And indeed, Newmark, the company's founder, though he was listed on the Craigslist management page a week ago, no longer appears there. Newmark has certainly made enough money, thanks to a 2004 stock purchase by eBay, to retire on. And his "team bio," still online, notes that he's "embarrassed" that the site is named after him. But for the geeks who still idolize him, the idea of a Craigslist without Craig would be hard to bear. Update: We heard from Newmark. His comments, after the jump.