Not a Fight eBay Wants to Pick

More has come to light of the weird eBay-Craigslist spat. Cnet has a nice breakdown.  In short, Craigslist felt eBay's classified site Kijiji breached some arrangement about eBay competing with Craigslist, so they diluted their share a few points. eBay now can't have a director on Craigslist's board.

I'm not attorney, but it's unclear to me why eBay would have legal rights here. It's a minority shareholder. Aren't there always provisions to allow companies to dilute shareholders, should they suddenly be perceived as a threat? If any attorneys are reading please let me know.

More to the point-- is this really a fight eBay wants to pick?

What exactly is the end game? So they lose a few percentages of Craigslist. Newmark insists the company isn't selling or going public, so then it's all about control. Why is eBay so intent on controlling Craigslist if not for anti-competitive reasons?

What eBay will gain is a PR black eye. People adore Craigslist. And eBay is increasingly vilified by users for playing games with fees. That and it has gone from charming flea market to sprawling, hard to navigate Wal-Mart of the web, where there's more BUT IT NOW! deals on socks than cool, kitschy collectibles. Not saying the mass market isn't a better business, just saying they're not the beloved brand they once were.

There's more to this story than what's in the filings. Anyone with insight leave it in the comments or email me.