Craigslist claims they do cooperate with investigative inquiries, but thus far no one is publishing any of these stories. It does state that law enforcement personnel provided feedback on how to design their new "adult section." Again, I'm not sure, but I imagine they couldn't claim this unless there was some truth to it; there is probably an army of lawyers monitoring this situation.
I doubt a flurry of media attention directed at Craiglist is going to solve the "people abuse" problem caused by anonymous venues. The problem will merely move from one anonymous venue to another one. The key will be the ability of the people doing the abuse to remain anonymous, or at least think they are. When sites and ISPs cooperate, it really isn't hard to track a lot of these individuals.
Since none of these sites are going away anytime soon, perhaps the best solution is to make it easier for the authorities to obtain cooperation from them when abuse is suspected or occurred, which is exactly what Craigslist is claiming to do. But Craigslist is hardly the only place where people are victimized by those with sinister intent on the Internet or via advertising in the print media. We need to begin to take a realistic look at the entire issue.
Article comments
1 - keith stoeckeler
saw this coming. too much pressure on the way the site is structured, regardless of the fact that there is an electronic road map so criminals will get caught eventually, that just doesn't bode well as "security measure" when it comes to the internet.
2 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Well, maybe people should be more skeptical & critical about giving out their personal information on a "free for all" website such as Craigslist. Why should Craigslist be responsible for the mass amounts of f*cking morons that haven't learned enough about their computer,connection & proper security measures before taking part in these anonymous venues?!
3 - Dave White
Check out Jim Buckmaster's blog (Craigs List Honcho) post about this. Basically he points out that they are in the same ballpark in terms of guidelines as the major papers and online sites for the area and if AG is going after them he has to go after them all.