But isn't that the downside of working in someone else's ecosystem? That company is going to do what's best for that company, as they should, and unless you have a contract with them, they are free to change how they allow access to the data they collected. Padmapper knew they were in a grey area, they rolled the dice and came out ahead more often than not. But at the end of the day, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

As far as it being the users data, this is true. But the collecting, organizing, publishing and accessibility of that data is a service that Craigslist provides, to the user, in exchange for an unlimited license of that material. I would love it if Craigslist opened up their data, but it just doesn't make any sense for them as a business.