Craig denies he has left CraigsList

THERE IS A BITt of a dispute over whether Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, is still working at the company he founded.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a story recently in which Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin slammed Craigslist for encouraging child prostitution by not checking its advertisements correctly.

Buried in the silly season story was a comment from Susan MacTavish Best, Craigslist spokeswoman and girlfriend of CEO Jim Buckmaster.

She said that neither she nor Jim could comment on the story as they were in Europe and Newmark was "no longer is involved in the company's daily affairs and was travelling".

Valleywag noticed that Newmark, who was listed on the management page a week ago, has been deleted. It is not as if Newmark needs the money. He made enough cash thanks to a 2004 stock purchase by eBay, to retire. But ValleyWag thought it odd that no one had announced him going.

It was even more surprised when Newmark got in touch and said that he was still working for the company as a "customer service representative."

He was a little miffed that Best said he was not involved in the outfit's daily affairs, but she told him that she never said that to the Journal-Constitution.

Craig was pretty laid back about being deleted from the company's management page. He said that the updated page now matched his claims, put forward for years, that he was not involved in the company's management.

More here. µ