Submitting to mounting legal pressure, Craigslist Inc. announced this afternoon that it will remove the Erotic Services category from its classified advertising Web site within seven days.
The move comes just two and a half weeks after Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster told Computerworld that the company had no intention of removing the Erotic Services category from the Craigslist site.
The company also announced today that while it's taking down the Erotic Services category, it will be launching a new category called Adult Services. Each posting to this new category will be manually reviewed before it appears on the Web site, which runs classified advertisements for everything from bicycles to lawn mowers.
"Unsurprisingly, but completely contrary to some of the sensationalistic journalism we've seen these past few weeks, the record is clear that use of Craigslist classifieds is associated with far lower rates of violent crime than print classifieds, let alone rates of violent crime pertaining to American society as a whole," said Buckmaster in a blog post today. "We are optimistic that the new balance struck today will be an acceptable compromise from the perspective of the constituencies, and for the diverse U.S. communities that value and rely upon Craigslist."
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who has been vocal in his criticism of Craigslist -- going so far as to call it an "online brothel" -- applauded the company's decision to remove the Erotic Services category.