DEPENDING on how you look at it, Craig Newmark is either a two-time loser or the most admirable man on the internet.

The terror of classified advertising managers across the world, Newmark runs one of the last truly global, first-generation internet businesses not to have sold out.

In the mid-1990s Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org, stood back as compatriots made paper fortunes selling their dotcom dreams. Now he is letting the second wave of sell-offs pass him by.

Craigslist started in 1995, as the name suggests, as a list of jobs, flats, gigs and other miscellany put together by San Francisco-based Newmark and posted on the web.

Today, Craigslist is used by more than 10m people a month in 34 countries and 175 cities, including Belfast, Birmingham, Edinburgh and London.

Most of its users are local people searching for jobs, flats or anything from a new car to a cat.

Unlike most websites, Craigslist is a spartan affair. There are no flashy graphics, no pop-up ads, no sponsors fighting for attention — but there is a lot to engage viewers.

There is Missed Connections, where people involved in chance encounters on the street or in trains, planes or passing cars try to get in touch with each other.

Then there are the postings that Craigslist warns us “may be explicitly sexual, scatological, offensive, graphic, tasteless, and/or not funny”. Now if that isn’t an advertisement, what is? And it’s all free — well, mostly. The privately held company doesn’t charge individuals for posting ads, only employers for job listings.

Annual revenues are estimated at between $7m and $10m (£4m- £5.5m). The firm could make many millions more, but its managers don’t want to. Craigslist’s chief executive Jim Buckmaster jokes — accurately — that the company is more financially successful than Amazon, the online bookseller that is still paying off huge debts. Goldman Sachs recently described Craigslist as “a real menace” to traditional media companies that sell classified advertising.

Newmark is planning a second assault. He is “getting serious” about online news, looking at how he could launch a news website. He is keeping the details to himself, but he has spoken about his admiration for Ohmynews, the South Korean website written mainly by an army of freelance “citizen reporters”.

Newmark is almost pathologically self-deprecating. He can’t wait to describe himself as a nerd and confess he wore a plastic pocket protector. “I’m not a man who needs a lot of attention to be happy,” he said. Seeing his name appearing on sites from Albuquerque to Zurich is a “pretty surreal experience”.

However, maybe fame is growing on him. He is becoming a must-have at media conferences — Goldman Sachs has been pleading for him to give a speech. Craigslist recently beamed 10,000 ads into outer space, and lucky extraterrestrials will soon be treated to a video statement from Newmark.

There are also a lot of people on Earth who would like to make a connection with Newmark and Buckmaster. Buckmaster said Craigslist receives offers on a weekly basis to buy the company.

“Sometimes I wince about the amount of money I have walked away from. I guess it’s many, many millions,” said Newmark.

“I’m not being pious about this, but I do have an idea about what’s important. Once you are financially comfortable, what’s the point of more money?”

Having gone out of favour, internet companies are hot once more. Traditional media companies, including News Corporation, ultimate owner of The Sunday Times, have been buying internet firms in recent months, keen to grab some of the explosive growth in advertising and viewers.

Newmark and Buckmaster said they would not be joining the sell-off. “We are not trying to conquer the world,” said Buckmaster. “We don’t have sales, we don’t have marketing. Lots of internet companies go public or sell because they want money to capture market share in short order. That’s not our way.”

He sees the site as “a public service”. “It’s a business, we make money. But it’s also a public service and we are proud of that,” he said.

The company employs only 18 people, it is profitable, has no venture-capital investors to pay off and no plans for a splurge of advertising. Craigslist can afford to do nothing and charge nothing for its ads.

Last year, one former employee, identified by The San Francisco Chronicle as Phillip Knowlton, sold a 25% share of the company to Ebay, the online auction giant, for a reported $15m.

Craigslist users feared the worst, and voiced their opinions on the site. “The only site that survived the corporate bullshit is now gobbled up by yet another big corporate,” wrote one.

But Buckmaster said the two firms were in alignment and Ebay would not look to make Craigslist maximise its profits or change its habits.

He said the sale has, if anything, reinforced Craigslist’s position. “We get a lot less calls from bankers now,” said Buckmaster, with a smile.

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