When Craig Newmark sold 25% of his Craigslist to eBay last year, there was some skepticism. "This is a mistake. eBay bad and robotic, Craig's List human and good. And now on the way to selling out."

Well, that writer need not have worried. Craigslist can be robotic, too.

Before, and since, eBay bought an early executive's stake in his company, Newmark has been busy trying to control what the Internet says you can't control -- links.

Techdirt has a summary of the latest. Just as eBay blocked out people who tried to link its auctions with those of other companies, Craigslist has forbidden aggregation, even searches across multiple Craigslist sites.

Had Craigslist not sold its stake to eBay it might be difficult for it to get away with this. But lawyers are wonderfully useful creatures, able to stop even obviously-legal things, like linking into the site, by firing papers and money over the bow.

The queston isn't, is this right. (It's not.) The question is, is this helpful to Craigslist?

The simple fact is that, in the short term, it's not, but in the long term, it may be.

Many of the services being offered by these aggregators were desireable. If you're not sensitive tow here someone you buy from is, a search of multiple Craigstist sites has enormous value. Locking out a classified aggregator could leave Craigslist as an island, unable to respond creatively to competition from, say, newspapers.

But it does provide Craigslist with an opportunity, to monetize links that should (by the nature of the medium) be free. If it decides to do this, and if it succeeds, then the rest of the Internet will tremble. We've had plenty of devaluation of the free link privilege over the years. Once someone can sell them, as links, the nature of the Internet will change.