Prosecutors with the U.S. Justice Department are reportedly investigating claims that eBay employees took confidential info from Craigslist to use in a service that would compete with it. Reuters reports that it has obviated a copy of a grand jury …

eBay said today it is launching two iPhone selling apps, one for its online marketplace and one for its new classifieds site.

With the new eBay Selling and classifieds apps users can photograph and list an item in less than a minute.  On April 3, the company will introduce a new version of the eBay app for iPad.

Craigslist has reportedly expanded the number of cities it offers its service in by a whopping 25%. Brad Stone with the New York Times claims to have been alerted by a spokesperson with the company on the matter.

Apparently Craiglist has added 140 new cities, including 87 in the United States, 8 in Canada, and 45 in non-North American countries.

Almost half (49%) of all Internet users have visited an online classified site like craigslist, a percentage that’s more than doubled over the past four years. In 2005, that number was just 22 percent, according to Pew Internet.

On any given day, about a tenth of Internet users, (9%) visit online classifieds, up from four percent in 2005.

Pew’s findings are based on an April 2009 telephone survey of 2,253 adults. Pew says the margin of error sits at about plus or minus 2.4 percent.

Don’t be surprised if the people behind Craigslist and other classifieds sites are secretly hoping for a repeat of the Great Depression.  New stats from Hitwise have arrived, and they show that Craigslist’s already-significant market share is increasing in such a way that it almost resembles a hockey stick.

eBay injects its brand name into its classifieds subsidiary Kijiji, which launched four years ago. Starting with two cities, the Kijiji name will change to eBay Classifieds.

AOL has entered into the classified market place with the launch of AOL Classifieds that allows users to search through local listings for every Zip Code in the U.S., as well as post their own ads for free.

AOL partnered with Oodle, which operates the largest network of classifieds services in the U.S. Users will have access to more than 40 million listings aggregated from more than 80,000 different sites.

Reaching the right customer with a classifieds placement may be the province of tighter behavioral targeting, rather than waiting for someone to search for what they want.

No Craigslist or Kijiji for Rupert Murdoch’s social networking outpost, MySpace; it’s Oodle that landed the agreement to make over the classified section on the site.

The website devouring the classified industry could hit $100 million in revenue in 2009 with a couple of minor changes, with the old-line newspaper industry helplessly watching from the sidelines.

If, outside of this article, you haven’t heard of Kijiji, here’s betting you will.  According to new numbers from comScore, eBay’s Craigslist-like property has seen some pretty impressive increases in unique visitor stats.

Spanish-language sites have been in Craiglist’s plans, and some of the online classified’s websites now have those sections online.

The online classifieds at Rupert Murdoch’s Big Apple tabloid are getting a makeover, in an impressive little win for Oodle.

Although Hearst Corp and MediaNews Group are linchpins in Yahoo’s newspaper/online classified alliance, the two publishers have made an investment in online classified ad provider Kaango.

Seventeen more newspapers signed on with Yahoo to participate in its classifieds program where HotJobs provides the job listings.

After deliberation in the Craigslist forums, the massively popular online classifieds site will begin imposing a fee on job postings in a quartet of new markets.

Topix.net, a local search news Web site has partnered with Tribune Interactive to run their online classifieds for general merchandising advertising. The general merchandise classifieds will launch in February starting with the baltimoresun.com and will be available on all 12 Tribune Interactive sites by the end of May.

Oodle will today announce the launch of the Oodle Index, a real-time pricing guide for online classified listings.

Looking to consolidate its listings services while horning in a bit on Craigslist’s local classifieds business, Yahoo! has hired former Knight Ridder executive Hillary Schneider to head up the company’s new Yahoo! Marketplaces unit.

The Philly.com website run by the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News will have its recruitment site run by online job board Monster.com.

Within the local news search at Topix.net, visitors will see local classified ads on the right side of the page and an invitation to post a free ad themselves.

Windows Live Expo, Microsoft’s answer to Craigslist and Google Base, will be launched in China and five other countries before the end of 2006.