Craigslist-eBay Name Calling Goes On

(MoneyWatch)  The trial in the eBay suit against Craigslist goes on, and so does the vitriol. In the latest stage, Craigslist CEO James Buckmaster took the stand and discussed an email he said he received from eBay's Garrett Price just over half a year after the latter became a shareholder in the former.

"He said he needed to tell me there were two Meg Whitmans. We had met and reached an agreement with Good Meg. There was another Meg, an Evil Meg. We would be best served to know that Meg could be a monster when she got angry and frustrated," Buckmaster told a court in Georgetown, Delaware.

Supposedly, Craigslist was driving "to distraction" Whitman, who presumably could retaliate as a result. Sometime after the testimony, in a written statement, Price characterized Buckmaster's statements about his alleged comments as "false and malicious." Now, this seems pretty easy to rectify. Show us the email.

Buckmaster's testimony, which lasted hours, actually started on Friday. Apparently, back in 2007 he sent an email to Whitman stating, "It is my sad duty to report that we are no longer comfortable having eBay as a shareholder," because eBay had launched a competitive service after having access to confidential information, which Brian Levey an eBay lawyer, admitted in testimony the company used to compete.

Some other interesting tidbits from the testimony so far:

• Google wanted to buy all of Craigslist.
• Other potential buyers included Yahoo, publishing house Bertelsmann, publisher Salon, and VC firm Kleiner Perkins.
• Whitman, presumably the "good Meg," supposedly gave assurances that eBay would not compete with Craigslist, even though there may have been nothing in the agreement the two companies signed in 2004 preventing eBay from entering the online classifieds market, so long as it didn't go into online job postings in the U.S.

A decision in the trial could be out by January. Chris Matyszczyk on our sister site CNET wondered who might be telling the truth and noted, "When rich people sue rich people, it often seems that the only possible winners can be rich people." Chris, maybe the answers are that the worst accusations on both sides are accurate and that the winners, as usual, will be the lawyers.

Image via stock.xchng user digital_a, site standard license.