Customers who have posted listings online are finding that their listings are being copied and published on competing sites, reports The Economic Times. Interestingly, it appears that only some sites actually contact the advertiser about republishing the listing on another site, but others don't. This raises questions about whether classifieds site can indeed do anything about copying, and, for that matter, who owns the listing: the advertiser or the website that it is listed on. For the website, the quantity of listings is important because they have to initiate a virtuous cycle: more listings means more buyers, and more buyers means more listings. The quality of listings means repeat usage, and hence lower cost of acquisition. This leads us to an interesting question: Who owns the listings on a classifieds site? Is it the advertiser or the website that it is listed on? Under what circumstances can an external party copy or aggregate listings? We're reminded of a couple of interesting cases: - In 2011, Zomato accused Burrp of copying listings, but decided against taking legal action. - In 2010, Times Jobs filed an FIR against theft of its jobseeker database. I remember a similar incident regarding Naukri.com, but couldn't find a link. - In 2006, Naukri.com took Bixee (eventually acquired by MIH India) to court for aggregating their listings, and the Delhi High Court passed a restraining order against deep linking. Just for fun, we checked some terms and conditions of three open classifieds listing sites: 1. OLX (terms): The person who put…
