How Do You Opt Out of Craigslist Terms of Use?

Dear Rich: I was curious how someone would 'opt out' of the Craigslist user agreement. It seems to me that being forever tied to a changing user agreement, if one isn't posting ads anymore, isn't right. There seems to be some confusion as to whether a Craigslist account can be terminated. Craigslist doesn't appear to have a posted policy. Some maintain that sending an email to CL's tech support will eventually do the trick. Others propose various workarounds such as changing your profile to include a fictitious email address or simply being inactive for four months which deactivates (whatever that means) an account.
Constantly changing EULA. As for your comment about the end user license agreement (EULA) that's constantly changing, we assume you know that's par for the course on the Internet where most EULAs reserve the right for the website to change terms arbitrarily. Look for a statement such as "Company reserves the right to modify and/or change any of the terms and conditions of this EULA at any time and without prior notice." The simplest solution to avoid having these newer user terms enforced against you is to stop using the site for all purposes.

Craigslist Won't Let Me Google Search

Dear Rich: Craigslist just sent out a bunch of cease and desist notices to people who display Google results in their sites using Google's 'custom search engine tool' where the results are craigslist listings. Many of these sites (such as my own site - CraigZoom.com), did have 'craig' in the name, so I can see where Craigslist could go after that. However, I'm not sure they have grounds for going after search engines. The problem with Craiglist is that they only offer local search, and many people want to find items either nationally, or throughout a state. Going to each Craigslist micro-location url is very cumbersome. I've taken down my site and forwarded the url to http://247classifiedads.com, where I've posted part of the cease and desist notice so that my users can see why the site is down. I have over 300 comments on the site already, and everyone is clearly upset that Craigslist is going after us. I'm thinking about putting the site on a new domain. Can URL forwarding can be considered copyright infringement? In answer to your last question, courts have found that forwarding a URL or linking to a URL can be copyright infringement if the person creating the link knew or had reason to know that the link was for unauthorized copying and encouraged it. Even though we don't think you were threatened with copyright infringement -- Craigslist's standard cease and desist letter is based on a breach of the user agreement, not copyright infringement -- we still think the same principles of unauthorized behavior apply. So, If you dont want to get mail from Craigslist attorneys, avoid URL forwarding or linking to mirror sites.
The End User License. We're not sure how cases like yours will resolve in court but we believe Craigslist has a strong argument regarding enforcement of its end user license.  Everyone who joins Craigslist is faced with the screen shown above before joining -- and by clicking "I  Accept" you entered into an enforceable agreement (which Craigslist believes you breached). As you correctly point out, your situation is further weakened by the use of "Craigs" in your site name and domain name. Craigslist's attorneys don't like that because it implies an association or endorsement. We're sorry to report that you may have to rethink your business model.
PS. We've looked at similar Craigslist issues (and examined the end user license) in January and March 2012,

New Craigslist Terms of Use: What's Up?

Dear Rich: I read your post about using Craigslist ads. Do you have any comments on the Craigslist Terms of Use as it has been updated Feb 14th 2012, after the date of your post? I believe the distinction between individual posts and cumulative content has been removed. I am particularly interested in exploring if I can manually aggregate interesting cars for sale on cragslist and repost them in my blog with a direct and visible reference back to the Craigslist posting. I am also hoping that I can reuse some of the pictures in those posts provided I clearly credit everything back to the original post. Is that ok to do? I am of two minds whether I run my blog commercially (would prefer) or non-commercially. Specifically because the new terms provide an exemption for non-commercial public archives I believe I could repost non-commercially. But what if I had adjunct commercial activity (like links to an Amazon store) but not inline with the purchase or sale of the product from Craigslist. Thanks for letting us know about the change in Terms of Use for Craigslist. The main rules, however, remain the same:

Any copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance or derivative use of craigslist or any content posted on craigslist whether done directly or through intermediaries (including but not limited to by means of spiders, robots, crawlers, scrapers, framing, iframes or RSS feeds) is prohibited.

It's true that a limited exception is provided for "noncommercial public archives" but we don't think that a blog about cars for sale qualifies as a public archive. (We think Craigslist is referring to archives such as the Way Back Machine.)

We also note that under these new terms of use, users authorize Craigslist (CL) as follows:

You also expressly grant and assign to CL all rights and causes of action to prohibit and enforce against any unauthorized copying, performance, display, distribution, use or exploitation of, or creation of derivative works from, any content that you post (including but not limited to any unauthorized downloading, extraction, harvesting, collection or aggregation of content that you post).

In other words, when individual posts are ripped off, the poster gives CL the right to go after the culprit. That raises the ante knowing that CL's lawyers can also chase you if they're inclined. Finally, reposting of the automobile photos may or may not amount to a separate claim of copyright infringement by whoever owns the copyright in those photos. That depends on a few factors, including how much originality went into the photo or whether it's simply a stock reproduction of the auto.