Craigslist makes changes to sex ads

Craigslist, the Web’s largest classified advertising site, said on Wednesday that it will close its controversial “erotic services” category, which critics have said is a forum that facilitates prostitution and other illegal activities.

In its place, the company has created a new category called “adult services” in which postings will be reviewed by employees, who will look for indications of activity that violates the site’s guidelines.

The move comes in the wake of pressure from officials in several states. But it does not appear to go far enough to satisfy everyone in the growing chorus of Craigslist’s critics.

Andrew Cuomo, New York’s attorney general, said that an impending criminal case brought by his office implicated the erotic services category. “Rather than work with this office to prevent further abuses, in the middle of the night, Craigslist took unilateral action which we suspect will prove to be half-baked,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement.

Jim Buckmaster, chief executive of Craigslist, said the move was not made under any legal pressure.

“In striking this new balance we have sought to incorporate important feedback from all the groups that have expressed strongly held views on this subject, including some of the state A.G.s, free speech advocates and legal businesses who are accustomed to being entitled to advertise,” Mr. Buckmaster said.

He said the San Francisco company, which currently has 30 employees, would hire enough new staff to be able to fully review each adult services advertisement before it is posted, to look for indications that it violates the site’s terms of service, which prohibits things like solicitations of sex or posts that contain explicit images. Postings to the new category will cost $10 and can then be reposted later for $5.

Mr. Buckmaster said the move was “strictly voluntary” and that Craigslist has always been on solid legal footing under the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which says that Web sites are not legally responsible for material contributed by their users.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who has been a leading critic of Web sites that can be used to facilitate offline sexual encounters involving minors, said that state investigators would continue to monitor Craigslist to make sure illicit postings did not simply migrate to other portions of the site that are not under review by employees.

“We are going to be extraordinarily watchful,” he said. “We are concerned about any possible new area where ads may migrate. We are not going away.”

Craigslist announced the changes just as several high-profile cases have converged to put the 14-year-old site under intense scrutiny. The case of Philip Markoff, a 23-year-old Boston man accused of killing a woman who offered masseuse services over Craigslist, has received national attention.

In March, the sheriff of Cook County in Illinois, the county that includes Chicago, sued Craigslist in federal court, alleging the site was “facilitating prostitution” and asking the court to force the company to close the erotic services category.

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