• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, August 10, 2010

Last year, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster threatened to prosecute Craigslist executives for abetting prostitution unless the company blocked adult ads.

Craigslist responded by going to court to request an injunction banning McMaster from following through. The company argued that the federal Communications Decency Act immunizes it from crimes committed by users. The attorney general agreed to refrain from attempting to prosecute Craigslist officials while the case was pending.

Now, more than one year after McMaster's ultimatum, U.S. District Court Judge C. Weston Houck has turned down Craigslist's request for a permanent injunction on the ground that any threat of prosecution is too remote to warrant action. Craigslist, Houck wrote, "requests an advisory opinion based on a hypothetical injury."

In other words, the federal courts aren't going to take any action in the matter unless and until McMaster actually tries to prosecute someone at Craigslist. Chances are slim that such a prosecution will ensue, given that courts have repeatedly held that the federal Communications Decency Act protects Craigslist from liability for material uploaded by users. As recently as last year, a federal judge in Chicago threw out a civil lawsuit brought by Sheriff Thomas Dart alleging that the site created a public nuisance by running prostitution ads.

Of course, even if Craigslist isn't likely to face any legal action as a result of users' ads, the adult listings still pose a problem for the company. Half-page ads recently ran in The Washington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle asking the company to shutter its adult services. The ad -- which directed readers to the Fairfund.org, Rebeccaproject.org and thenationalcrittentonfoundation.org -- consisted of a letter to craigslist founder Craig Newmark by two people who said they were "survivors of Craigslist sex trafficking."

Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster responded with a blog post asking for more information. "Hearing your accounts of being victimized by criminals who you mention also misused our site, we are anxious to know that the perpetrators are behind bars," he wrote. "Would you or the advocacy groups who placed the ads please let us know where the police reports were filed? We have been unable thus far to identify police reports matching the crimes you describe. If Craigslist was misused, we want to learn more so we can improve our preventative measures."

Buckmaster also detailed the steps Craigslist takes to police its site, including manual screening of all adult ads before they go live.