Wednesday was a momentous day. Not only was it ideaLaunch editor Amanda Smyth’s birthday, but it was the day that Craigslist execs announced it will be obliterating the “erotic services” category and replacing it with the more pricey and monitored “adult services.”

Wow! There’s a huge difference between the two, right? I mean, no one would ever consider “erotic services” and “adult services” to be synonyms. Those Craigslist people are geniuses! Score one for state attorneys general around the country who bullied Craigslist into axing erotic services and zero for escorts, prostitutes, “masseuses” and freedom of speech.

Let’s be real. Has the oldest profession in the world ever been entirely safe? And has it still persisted throughout history into the 21^st century? And will it stop now that a few people at Craigslist HQ will be giving a “yay” or “nay” vote to inappropriate/graphic posts in this renamed category? No. The pervs and hookers will find a way to take advantage of the new category … or take their business elsewhere.

Too many give Craigslist a bad rap for the recent spate of crimes traced back to the online classifieds behemoth. But this type of crime is old hat: it dates back to the Lonely Hearts Killers of the nineteen forties who used classified print ads to lure their victims. With the huge amount of traffic Craigslist draws—over 20 billion page views per month for the 1.5 billion ads posted to date—these crimes are a tiny spattering of bird excrement on the big windshield that is Craigslist. According to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster, this number of ads “is easily one thousand times the combined total ever posted to the print publications involved in all of [the] ‘print ad murders.’” At least through Craigslist authorities have the chance of tracking credit cards and IP addresses, so if something terrible happens, like it did in Boston last month, there may exist valuable electronic evidence that leads to a culprit.

Bullying websites and trying to impose tight regulations is not going to eradicate crime. But partnering with technology and using it smarter can save lives.

One final note about Craigslist. I absolutely love the local furniture-for-sale listings. They helped me furnish my new apartment at a fraction of the cost of shopping retail. Buying gently-used furniture is also a great way to reduce the volume we contribute to landfills.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 3:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.