Is Ebay the New Craigslist of Online Sex Trafficking?

Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster has decided to respond to the latest round of allegations that his website promotes child sex trafficking by shifting the blame to Ebay, claiming their Spanish subsidiary Luquo has ads just as bad as Craigslist's. And for once, Jim Buckmaster is right. Does that mean Ebay is becoming the next Craigslist of sex trafficking?

Buckmaster recently called Ebay out on the ads on his blog, claiming that, like the ads on Craigslist, Luquo ads obviously advertise sex for money and go against Ebay's "family-friendly" policies. So I checked out Luquo, and he's got a point. Though all the ads are in Spanish, even someone with my high school-level language skills could tell these were ads for commercial sex. And some of the girls in the ads looked very, very young. So what did Ebay do to respond to these (clearly founded) allegations? They blocked Luquo from anyone with a U.S. IP address. Of course, Techcrunch provides a helpful IP anonymizer if you want to check out the page for yourself. But be warned, it's very, very adult and NSFW.

Ebay claims they are in the process of replacing Loquo with a less risque classifieds page, but thus far hasn't given any details about when or how that replacement will take place, and whether or not Ebay will shut down Luquo, sell it, or try and reform it. Also important to note in the wake of these allegations is that Craigslist and Ebay have been embroiled in a long and messy legal battle over the 25% of Craigslist which Ebay owns, most of which has involved some very rich people calling each other some very silly names. So the idea that Craigslist would like to pin the "sex trafficking facilitator" allegation on Ebay or vice versa is not unfathomable.

There remain some critical differences between Ebay's Luquo and Craigslist, however. The first is that Luquo exists entirely in Spain, where laws regarding prostitution are vague and the commercial sex industry is generally tolerated, to the point of advertising for it in the country's most prominent newspapers. Craigslist is based in the U.S., where prostitution is clearly illegal everywhere but a few counties in Nevada. Ebay has also announced plans, cloudy though they are, to get rid of Luquo. Craigslist made some cosmetic changes over a year ago that haven't actually changed anything. But most importantly, I've never heard of a human trafficking victim who was sold on Luquo, whereas there are several documented cases of victims sold on Craigslist. And if I'm wrong and anyone reading this knows of cases of human trafficking on Luquo, please let me (and your local law enforcement in Spain) know about it.

So Craigslist found another kid to share the blame with. Congrats. But it doesn't make them any less at fault. They still need to change.

Photo credit: athomeinscottsdale