Mobile technology has forever transformed the way people work, live and connect with friends, family and brands. Apps are at the forefront of that transformation, and consumers have swiftly taken to the hundreds of thousands of incredibly useful available programs, many of which are offered free of charge for iOS or Android systems. Many different industries have swiftly adapted to this change in interaction, from entertainment to travel to communications. Real estate has also seen a lot of useful apps hit the market, some more successfully than others. One such app, called PadMapper, recently found a way around some legal troubles that were severely limiting its viability. The app is called PadMapper, and it aggregates apartment listings in map form, allowing those in the market for a new home to see all available properties around their location of choice.

PadMapper had received a cease-and-desist letter from Craigslist, the online bulletin board that helps people find jobs, items for sale, and properties to rent or purchase. According to the company, they’ve found a way around a ban that kept Craigslist’s offerings from being included in their service. PadMapper basically hunts down all the rental listings located within a certain Zip code or city limit, pulling the properties from Craigslist and a range of other online services. It then uses a Google map to drop arrows at each location, giving users the ability to search all the listings by size, price or address. Craigslist wasn’t thrilled with their collected info being used without permission by PadMapper, and the company sent Eric DeMenthon, the app’s creator, a letter claiming they were in violation of the Craigslist terms of use agreement.

If you navigate to Craigslist, you’ll find an agreement that disallows any individual or company from copying, displaying or distributing any of the information posted on their site. Of course that means a huge issue for Dementhon and PadMapper. Craigslist is probably the largest aggregator online when it comes to real estate listings, so losing them from the service would probably mean the end of PadMapper as a practical app for apartment hunters. According to a blog post published today by DeMenthon, the question was never whether to scrap PadMapper, but if there would be some way to integrate Craigslist’s massive amount of property listings in future search results. Dementhon spoke to many legal experts as well as technology companies to find some sort of workaround, and was happy to announce that the company found a way to get past the terms of use violation in a completely legal manner. He’s loathe to go against the wishes of Craigslist, since at one time they were a young and hungry start-up as well, but he also wants to offer his clients the best possible service, and the workaround doesn’t interact with the Craigslist servers in any way.

The solution came from a company called 3taps. They were able to develop an API that indirectly pulls data from Craigslist, giving PadMapper the extra level of separation it needed to work around the cease-and-desist. DeMenthon mentioned in his blog post that he’d prefer to work something out directly with Craigslist, and that he will continue to direct traffic back to their site, but he’s not willing to have his customers miss out on the latest apartment rentals. Craigslist has been approached for a comment, but has yet to deliver one.

Editor’s Note

Thanks to Evan Fischer for this guest post. He is a freelance writer and part-time student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California.

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