[tikhonj]

And if they're not a constructive part of the community, the community has every right (I think it's practically an obligation) to berate them for it.

Just having a business plan and making money should not protect you from criticism or absolve behavior detrimental to the general community! Yes, legally Craigslist has no obligations; that's why nobody's litigating. I argue that morally (at least from a utilitarian standpoint), Craigslist does have an obligation to play nice. And so I welcome critical blog posts and bad publicity.

[BobPalmer]

Oh, I agree 100% that if the community disagrees with the behavior of an entity they they have every right to berate them. And if a company behaves poorly enough, it will open the floodgates for competitors and revenue loss (i.e. GoDaddy during SOPA probably lost an appreciable number of customers).

That being said, in this specific case I think that whether or not there is a moral obligation to let a third party scrape and mix-in your data is very debatable (given that Craigslist does not provide an API).

Sure, people should play nice. And some may interpret playing nice as 'don't scrape other people's stuff for your own startup'. Or at least don't be suprised when they get pissed ;)