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Craigslist Eliminates 'Erotic Services' Section

by Chad Mumm on May 13, 2009 at 05:34 PM



Thanks to the highly publicized April 14th murder of Boston masseuse Julissa Brisman, Craigslist's "erotic services" section has been under intense scrutiny by media and government alike, despite a year-long effort to curb illegal prostitution posts. After a month in the national spotlight, Reuters is reporting that Craiglist has announced that it will be changing the name of the "erotic services" section to "adult services," and it will be manually reviewing every ad posted there.

This is a big win for Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who has been the loudest voice in calling for changes to the site since the April media frenzy surrounding the arrest of Phillip Markoff, the 23-year old 'Craigslist Killer' charged with Brisman's murder.



Well before last month's events brought it to the front page, Craigslist's "erotic services" section had been a target for concerned officials who equated the section to a digital brothel. In November 2008, a group of 40 state Attorneys General and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children partnered with the site to implement greater protective measures, although that didn't stop an Illinois Sheriff from filing suit against Craigslist for fostering prostitution in March. Craigslist countered that, with the November partnership, the site had seen a 90-percent drop in "erotic services" listings, but the events of April were the final nail in the coffin.

Obviously, Craigslist is making the right move here, although you'd be hard-pressed to argue it had any other choice. Those who abused the site before will quickly find another venue for their prostitution, and we'll just end up rinsing and repeating this whole thing again. We saw it with file sharing -- that's just the nature of the Internet. [From: Reuters]

Tags: classifieds, craigslist, craigslist killer, CraigslistKiller, crime, erotic services, EroticServices, prostitution, sex, top

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