Despite having the law on its side Craigslist took down its Adult Services section at the end of August, replacing it with the word Censored. It did so without fanfare – and still no explanation. But the small change marked a big capitulation to a gaggle of state attorneys general and anti–child-trafficking groups who have been hounding the free classifieds listing service for years, casting Craigslist as an online pimp.

__ANALYSIS__Craigslist's complete retreat was from a compromise position it agreed to, two years ago with same said attorneys general – a few with political ambitions. Despite – or perhaps because of – Craigslist's unconditional surrender, this group is amping up its assault on the 12-year old law that has allowed the net to flourish. And now Congress is getting into the righteousness with a hearing during which two representatives from Craigslist will face public flogging from politicians in the midst of an election season.

While we can expect this kind of showboating and moral grandstanding from politicians, the reason they've gotten this far has everything to do with companies like Google, Yahoo, Yelp and Facebook standing on the sidelines, silently allowing Craigslist to be pilloried out of fear they'll be tainted as supporting prostitution and child-sex–trafficking if they stood up for an open internet.

The hearing is a set-up. There are two panels of witnesses. The first are five current and former members of Congress, who will undoubtedly use their time in front of cameras to make it clear how awful prostitution is. They'll be followed by a panel with a range of witnesses, from law enforcement and anti–child-trafficking groups, along with a representative from Craigslist and one of its lawyers.

While we can expect this kind of showboating and grandstanding from politicians, the reason they've gotten this far has everything to do with companies like Google, Yahoo, Yelp and Facebook standing on the sidelinesWe have seen this movie before, of course.

Oddly, no one argues that Craigslist has broken any laws. Craigslist is, instead, portrayed as a bad net citizen – even though it is operating exactly as intended under the landmark 1996 Communications Decency Act, which indemnifies services and publishers from the possibly unprotected speech of their readers. The law that makes it possible for sites to have comment sections, lets you read and write restaurant views and makes it possible for Facebook to even exist.

The relevant section, CDA 230, simply states:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

So CDA 230 protects Craigslist – and also WordPress, Yelp, Google Groups, Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Topix, Yahoo, The New York Times and Wired.com to name a few. Google's Blogger isn't responsible for any libel in any posts, Twitter isn't responsible for Tweets from drug dealers, Facebook isn't responsible for uploaded incriminating photos, Yelp can't be sued if someone posts a libelous review, and no news site is legally responsible for what any commenter says.

At the behest of the gang of attorneys general, Craigslist began requiring, in late 2008, that posters to Adult Services use a credit card, the better to track down illegal activity. They hired a full-time attorney to screen the ads for pornographic images and terms that seemed to indicate minors were involved, and rejected 700,000 ads on that basis last year. It partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

In other words, the prosecutors got yes for an answer, got the anticipated results – and it was not enough.

The most recent assault on Craigslist has been led by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is in a tight race for the U.S. Senate. Wired.com asked his office what he thinks Craigslist has done to violate any law, and how he would rework CDA 230.

"Websites that falsely promise to enforce their terms of service may violate Connecticut consumer protection laws," Blumenthal said in a written statement to Wired.com. Maybe, but that's a far cry from being an online pimp.

The CDA? Obsolete.

"I support changes clarifying and strengthening the law to hold websites accountable when they knowingly enable or promote illegal activity," Blumenthal said. "Present law is outdated and needs revision."

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After Craigslist took down the adult services section, Blumenthal's office discovered – as Craigslist had warned – that adult services ads were beginning to show up in sections of the site that are free, such as the personals. So Blumenthal told Craigslist it needed to start checking all ads in the personal section.

"Not only does technology enable Craigslist to easily screen for ads that promote prostitution but a simple manual review of ads in the personals section of Craigslist can readily detect illegal activity and other postings that violate its terms of service" [emphasis added], Blumenthal wrote in a Sept. 7 letter to Craigslist.

Craigslist is now also accused of profiting from the ads, even though the site only began requiring credit cards to place such ads at the behest of the attorneys general. The notion that Craigslist covets this revenue is laughable. For years the Valley has slapped its forehead at all the money that the company leaves on the table, charging only for housing and job ads in a few big markets.

Indeed, newspapers blame Craigslist for accelerating the deterioration of the industry by destroying the classifieds business. Those little ads went a long way to subsidize newspaper operations, and Craigslist prices them at an unbeatable $0.00 – which means they actually cost the service something instead of netting them anything.

Blumenthal is far from a rogue politician. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who ran for the U.S. Senate earlier this year, said at the time that she wants the law changed, that she's got support from Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), and if elected, would hold hearings about changing the law.

How did it get this far?

Mostly it's because Craigslist fought a lonely fight. As the company fought to defend itself and – by extension – CDA 230, its powerful, natural internet allies have largely remained quiet. No company wants to look like it's supporting prostitution or child-trafficking.

It's not really clear what opponents want, unless you take the jaundiced view this is just raw political posturing against an easily tarred straw man that can't adequately defend itself. They got Craigslist to compromise two years ago and are now complaining even more loudly about the very consequences Craigslist had predicted.

The logical extension of what Blumenthal and company say they want is a world where even they couldn't use Facebook, Twitter and Flickr to connect with their constituents, for fear that one of them (or their political enemies) would plant incriminating material they could then be sued over.

And even if they were successful, and didn't care about that consequences, would ads for prostitution disappear from the face of the earth? Not likely. The same ads that Craigslist is pilloried for dominate the back pages of alternative weeklies. The printed Yellow Pages carries ads for "Escort Services." You can find them in the Village Voice–owned Backpages.com.

And beyond the media world, it's not very hard to find "massage" parlors in any major U.S. city, where I'd venture to guess, you are more likely to find human-trafficking than you were anywhere on Craigslist. And back in the relative shadows whence they came, the exploiters of women and children would only have more power.

The collateral damage of this wrong-headed pursuit of Craigslist is an assault on the open internet itself.

That's not hyperbole. Here's what the Center for Democracy and Technology, the most mainstream and well-respected digital rights group in the country, has to say about Wednesday's hearing:

“Congress took strong action to insulate online intermediaries from liability for user-generated content in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It is precisely these protections – known as Section 230 – that led to the dramatic growth of social networking and made the United States the engine of internet innovation and free expression it is today," the organization's president Leslie Harris wrote. "We urge this subcommittee to exercise great caution before it considers any action that would narrow this important legal framework.”

The open internet owes Craigslist a thank-you for fighting as long as it did, an apology for not coming to its aid, and some serious arm-linking starting now.

We don't know if Craigslist has, but we will ask you: Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Facebook, et al: It's time for the net start fighting back.

UPDATE: This story was updated to reflect that Martha Coakley was a Senate candidate earlier this year, but is currently running for re-election as Massachusetts attorney general.

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