If you take a look at a book on microeconomics, you'll see a section on bartering. Generally, it will say that the process is fairly inefficient. Hey, that's why societies have invented currencies, right?

This is all true. Yet, for those who are trying to run a business, bartering may be a good thing. Perhaps the biggest reason is that it saves on cash. It also can be a great way to build relationships and perhaps even get new customers.

There are a variety of reasons for the disarray in the newspaper industry. But one culprit is a funky website: craigslist, which provides online classified services.

Craig Newmark started the service back in 1995 Originally, it was a simple email list for local events in San Francisco. Since then, growth has exploded. In fact, there are about 20 billion page views per month.

What's more, according to a report from Classified Intelligence Report, the craigslist site is expected to generate more than $100 million in revenues for this year.

Craigslist is on the receiving end of an avalanche of bad publicity in the wake of the Boston University Medical School murders. South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster is threatening to charge the company with aiding and abetting prostitution if an ad on the site leads to a prostitution arrest in his state.

Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster is bucking McMaster, complaining on his company's blog that the company is being unfairly targeted. "Seriously?" he writes. "The craigslist adult services section for Greenville, SC, has a total of one ad for the last three days, featuring a photograph of a fully clothed person. The 'erotic services' section for Greenville, which we recently closed, has eight ads total which will expire in two days, and even for these ads the images and text are quite tame."

If you look at top websites -- like Wikipedia and craigslist -- a common theme is user participation. It certainly can be a powerful thing.

Well, this is what Glassdoor.com is trying to do. Actually, this week the company announced a $6.5 million venture capital round (the total amount raised since its founding is $9.5 million). The investors include: Sutter Hill Ventures and Benchmark Capital.

So far, Glassdoor.com has attracted 115,000 contributions from its user base (the site launched in June). Basically, they have provided information about their employers, such as on salaries, culture and so on. There are even ratings of company CEOs.

All in all, it's a neat idea. After all, making the decision on a new job is critical -- but often fraught with uncertainty. So why now allow the community to help out?

According to the Glassdoor blog:

"Now more than ever, people want to know what it's really like inside a company and more and more employees are sharing details about their jobs and work environments. With increased resources, employees and employers can improve upon the decisions they make for their career and for their company. In this environment, in particular, we think this investment sends a strong signal about the value of the information available on Glassdoor.com to people around the globe."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Streetsmart Guide to Short Selling: Techniques the Pros Use to Profit in Any Market. He is also the founder of BizEquity, a valuation website.

Back in April, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), which owns 28.4% of Craiglist, sued the company alleging that its board of directors (which consists only of founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster) had attempted to dilute eBay's stake to just 10%.

Well, Craigslist wasn't having any of that. It filed a lawsuit accusing the company of interfering with its business operations, unfair competition by using its proprietary information, and infringing its trademark to attract visitors to eBay Web sites. The suit was filed yesterday in California Superior Court in San Francisco.

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Something new and something old, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) the large Internet trading platform competes more each day with Craigslist, who's platform continues to unfold. They are very much the same, and oh so different, too. Craigslist has been resisting becoming eBay in too many ways, yet eBay has gone through the back door to acquiring partial ownership and tracking a competitive threat from the inside.

Being public, eBay must disclose its financial information, which is not true for the private Craigslist. Craigslist is not happy about eBay's ownership position, and for its part eBay has sued Craigslist. It says the board diluted its interest in the popular site by more than 10%, and the two have been trading accusations since.

For most of Craigslist's history there has been pressure to become public or sell itself outright or make the pursuit of profit a higher motive. That has been shunned in favor of slowly building a user friendly and practical Internet information trading platform.

The lawsuit between Ebay (NASDAQ:EBAY) and Craigslist is just beginning and its genesis has finally come out.

The issue between the companies began when Ebay brought its classified business Kijiji into the US market a little less than a year ago. Craigslist viewed this as triggering an anti-competitive clause with Ebay, one of the online classified site's shareholders.

According to The Wall Street Journal's story on the lawsuit, "Craigslist directors held clandestine meetings in October 2007 to dilute eBay's minority stake in the online-classifieds company after eBay developed a rival offering."

It turns out that Ebay had also made an offer to buy all of Craigslist.

The merit in the lawsuit would appear to be with Craigslist. It is hard to imagine that it would stand by and let a large shareholder set up a direct competitor. It is harder to imagine why Ebay would file suit over the effort by Craigslist to protect itself.

The law may be on Ebay's side, to some extent. Craigslist did have a board meeting and set-up provisions to keep Ebay from taking a more active role. But, the morality of the situation favors Craigslist. Ebay's attempt to set up a competing business violated the "spirit" of the relationship between the two companies.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 letter.

And now there's a big issue with eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), which owns 28.4% of Craiglist. Apparently, the relationship has been somewhat rocky as is evident by the lawsuit announced last night. eBay is claiming that the board of Craigslist (which consists only of Newmark and the CEO, Jim Buckmaster) has attempted to water down the ownership position – to a mere 10%.

I can certainly understand Craigslist's actions. After all, eBay has its own classifieds service called Kijiji. But hey, in the tech world, such arrangements are nothing new. It's to be expected (and so are lawsuits).

Interestingly enough, Newmark is not being shy about things and has responded via his blog. According to him, the lawsuit is a surprise and he claims that eBay has "ulterior motives," which may involve a hostile takeover.

Really? Let's see, how many times has eBay launched a hostile deal? I can't remember. Plus, such a thing is nearly impossible for a minority shareholder to pull off (and, even more difficult if the ownership position has been heavily diluted).

Unfortunately, eBay's legal complaint was not disclosed (because of confidentiality reasons), but the venue is Delaware, which has lots of expertise in shareholder disputes and usually handles things fairly quickly.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Online auction company eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) owns just over 28% of classifieds company craigslist. eBay bought in during 2004.

Now, eBay is suing craigslist and its management for diluting its share in craigslist, something it contends the classifieds company can not do. "The recent actions by the craigslist directors have disadvantaged eBay and its investment in Craigslist," Michael Jacobson, eBay's senior vice president and general counsel according to The New York Times.

All of this is a great mystery. eBay has not said what it paid for its stake. It has also not disclosed why it thinks craigslist has taken actions to cause dilution.

Why did eBay disclose the lawsuit but insist that its details be sealed? Craigslist is a private company, so there was no need to let the public know about the move.

One of several things might be happening. eBay has no control over craigslist management. Craigslist is one of the largest websites on the internet. eBay might want more of a say in how the company is operated and how it makes money. Many listings on craigslist are free. eBay may believe it will never make money on its investment if craigslist does not become more aggressive in its pricing.

The other possible motive is that eBay may want to try to force craigslist into a sale, with eBay being the acquirer. The auction firm needs something to jump-start its US business. A judgment against the classified company, especially if it includes any money damages, might open the door for eBay to move in.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com