photo credit: InfoMofo
Craigslist has a new blog that is nearly totally useless. I love Craigslist for everything it is and for everything it isn’t: simple, no frills, with a lot of information; but the Craigslist blog is useless because it really isn’t a blog without permalinks (I don’t care about the comments, really). In fact, when a post rolls off the main page it seems to be gone forever. Because the fine folks at Craigslist can’t pull it together, I’m going to create a permalink to some information they posted a couple of days ago.
Craigslist has created a new phone verification system for the erotic services section of their site, meaning people wanting to post there will have to verify by phone, which is similar to what Google does for Checkout and some other services. Here’s what the blog post says:
In early March we implemented a phone verification system for our “erotic services” category, which taken together with other measures has reduced the volume of ads in this category by 80%, and more importantly has signficantly [sic] improved compliance with our terms of use and other posted guidelines.
This might put a dent in the police work at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who in the past have enjoyed putting ads on Craigslist to entice suspects, then charge them with illegal solicitation. Here are two examples of the fine police work at UMass Amherst.
Hey, I bet cops using Craigslist is against the terms of use! Craigslist should take them to court! What do you think?