South Carolina’s top prosecutor needs to answer “hard questions” about why he is targeting Craigslist officials for possible criminal charges, the head of the world’s largest Internet classified-ad service told The State on Monday.
“If it’s a crime for us to be doing it, it’s a crime for everyone else to be doing it,” Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster said in a telephone interview from his San Francisco-based company. “I’m sick and tired of being singled out.”
Buckmaster on his company blog Monday and in his interview with The State called on S.C. Attorney Henry McMaster to apologize for threatening to prosecute him and other company officials for violating state prostitution and obscenity laws by running sexually explicit online ads.
“I’m anticipating an apology for these wrongful accusations and an affirmative statement that no such proceedings will be brought against me or other CEOs,” Buckmaster told The State.
He contended that Internet phone directories and other publications routinely carry online ads for escort services and that search-engine sites such as Yahoo and companies such as Microsoft carry “more graphic images on their servers than you will find on our site.”
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