Craigslist Terms of Use

This is Craigslist's Terms of Use — the legal rules you automatically agree to whenever you visit or use the Craigslist website or app, covering everything from posting ads to browsing listings. The single most important thing to know is that any content you post on Craigslist gives the company a permanent, irrevocable, worldwide license to use, copy, distribute, and build upon that content in any way, even after you delete your account. Craigslist can also charge you specific dollar amounts per violation if you scrape data, send unsolicited texts to users, or abuse the platform — and posting fees are non-refundable even if your ad is removed.

This document governs all access to and use of Craigslist's websites, mobile app, servers, services, and associated content, operating as a binding clickwrap contract under California law last updated August 16, 2019. The most significant obligations created include a broad perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide sublicensable license granted by users to Craigslist over all posted content, strict prohibitions on automated access and data scraping, and a comprehensive liquidated damages schedule imposing per-violation financial penalties on users for enumerated breaches. Notable deviations from industry standard include the absence of mandatory arbitration or class action waiver provisions — Craigslist instead mandates exclusive jurisdiction in San Francisco, CA courts — combined with an unusually detailed liquidated damages clause that imposes up to $3,000 per day for content aggregation and charges $0.25 per page for accessing more than 1,000 pages in a 24-hour period. The document engages California consumer protection law, CAN-SPAM Act, TCPA (implied through unauthorized text/call provisions), DMCA (via incorporated IP policy), and FTC Act Section 5 unfair practices standards; liability is capped at $100 or the prior year's payments, which may conflict with consumer protection floors in certain jurisdictions. Compliance teams should note that the TOU incorporates by reference multiple external policies (privacy policy, prohibited list, site rules) without reproducing their content, creating a compound contractual framework that requires independent review of each referenced document.