Craigslist Drops Suit Involving Execs, Adult Ads

Craigslist Drops Suit Involving Execs, Adult Ads

by Wendy Davis, Craigslist has given up its battle to have a court prevent the prosecution of company executives by law enforcement authorities in South Carolina. On Friday, the company quietly withdrew a request that U.S. District Court Judge C. Weston Houck reconsider an earlier decision dismissing the site's lawsuit against former Attorney General Henry McMaster.

The move ties up a loose end from a 2009 dispute between the then-Attorney General and the free listings site. At the time, McMaster demanded that Craigslist remove all adult ads, and threatened that failure to do so could result in criminal charges. Craigslist responded with a lawsuit seeking an injunction barring charges against company officials. Last August, Houck dismissed that case on the theory that the threat of prosecution was too remote to warrant court intervention.

Craigslist asked Houck to reconsider, and also sought to revise its original lawsuit to explain why it believed it faced a realistic threat of prosecution. But the company abandoned that effort without explanation on Friday. Craigslist's lawyer has not responded to Online Media Daily's request for comment.

Much has changed since McMaster first threatened to prosecute the company's officials. Significantly, McMaster ceased serving as Attorney General earlier this year, after unsuccessfully running for governor. It's not yet clear whether the state's new top law enforcement official will hold Craigslist executives liable for illegal ads. In addition, Craigslist changed its official policies and says it no longer allows adult ads on the site.

Despite its decision to shutter the adult ads, Craigslist takes the position that any civil or criminal action against the company would be prohibited by the federal Communications Decency Act, which provides that Web sites are not responsible for material created by users. Other courts have interpreted that law to mean that Web sites are immune from liability when users post illegal ads. Craigslist itself prevailed in a separate litigation in federal court in Illinois, where a judge dismissed a lawsuit by Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart alleging that the site created a public nuisance by running prostitution ads.