Craigslist removed access to all of its Canadian sites on Tuesday morning, providing only a cryptic explanation that cited terms of service violations.
Craigslist maintains a number of regional sites for various cities across Canada, but access to all of them appeared to be blocked on Tuesday. Instead, users attempting to access them were redirected to a page containing the following message:
The website formerly operating at this domain violated craigslist’s Terms of Use and/or enabled or facilitated others in violating the TOU, and/or infringed craigslist’s trademark(s) or other intellectual property.
Craigslist does not permit automated posting or the employment of posting agents (software or human). Users who post non-local or irrelevant content, repeatedly post the same or similar content, or otherwise misuse craigslist’s services detract from the user experience for all craigslist users.
Access to the sites had returned by 9:30 am PST, with no additional information about why they had been blocked.
Threat Level has contacted Craigslist for comment and will update this post when new information comes in.