Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon and 42 other states announced an agreement with Craigslist today (Thursday/yesterday.) As Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, they’re trying to stop prostitution and other sex crimes from being carried out using the webpage.

A prostitute can solicit a client using Craigslist by simply posting a suggestive sentence, a picture and a phone number.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says child molesters use similar tactics to communicate.

Craigslist has rules banning illegal behavior, but it’s very expensive to police millions of posts every day.

Jake Weigler, with the Oregon Attorney General’s office, says the company has now agreed to make advertisers in the ‘erotic services’ section pay with a credit card that has a trackable billing address.

Weigler: “Of course people are going to find other parts of the net to go and hide on but it’s such a large service, millions of people visit every day, that we think that cracking down on that area in particular will really allow us to close down the market.”

Craigslist says it will also explore technology to block inappropriate images and better screen for words and euphemisms used in illegal activity.