South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster is threatening to file criminal charges against Craigslist if they don’t remove the “erotic services” section from the S.C. section.

McMaster said in a letter to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster that the section is used as vehicle to advertise and solicit prostitution.  He also accused the service of not following though on the commitments it made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and 43 AGs around the country back in November.  At the time Craigslist agreed to improve measures to prevent its service from being misused.  It began requiring advertisers to provide a valid phone number and pay for ads in the erotic services section with a credit card.  It also said it would donate all revenues gained from that section to charity.

Craigslist responded to McMaster in a blog post:

We look forward to speaking directly with Attorney General McMaster about his concerns, and finding ways to address them without compromising the utility of craigslist for South Carolinians, or anyone’s Constitutional rights.  However, we see no legal basis whatsoever for filing a lawsuit against craigslist or its principals and hope that the Attorney General will realize this upon further reflection.

This is not the first time the erotic services section has come under fire.  The service recently met with AGs from Missouri, Connecticut, and Illinois who all want the section removed in their states as well, and last month a Boston University student was arrested and charged with murdering a woman he arranged to meet through the erotic services section.  He’s also accused of kidnapping and beating two other woman he met through the site. 

It looks like Craigslist is in hot water.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they found themselves handed a lawsuit by the family of the woman who was murdered.  Despite their repeated claims that removing the section would violate Constitutional rights, it’s clear something needs to be done to make the service safer and more accountable if it is going to continue.  It’s not as if they are the only ones offering such a section though.  Pick up any weekly paper like the Phoenix or Village Voice and you’ll find a similar section.  However it appears the online nature of Craigslist seems to make it more attractive-and as we’ve seen, deadly.