potential 17 state attorneys general in court.
Strategic Ploy?
Craigslist's adult services shutdown might be a ploy to draw "attention to its fight with state attorneys general over sex ads and to issues of free speech on the Internet," according to The New York Times. If that's the case, Connecticut State Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal told the Times he won't be taken in by it. "If this announcement is a stunt or a ploy...they would be in a sense be thumbing their nose at the public interest," Blumenthal told the Times.
The fact that Craigslist has put a censored banner where the site's adult services section used to be certainly suggests Craigslist was interested in drawing attention to the issue. There are also many reports that Craigslist earns about one-third of the site's revenue from adult services listings. The implication being that it needs to draw attention to this fight just to survive financially.
Craigslist's earnings numbers are based on estimates from groups such as the classified advertising consultancy Advanced Interactive Media Group. AIMG says adult services will be about 30 percent of Craigslist's estimated $122 million in revenue for 2010.![]()
