TY - GEN
T1 - The digital sin city
T2 - 2016 International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2016
AU - Mojumder, Probal
AU - Chan, Jason
AU - Ghose, Anindya
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Online prostitution has flourished due to presence of online intermediaries. Despite the illegality of selling sexual services online, the Section 230 of Communications Decency Act shields websites from liability for unlawful postings by third parties. Consequently, the websites like Craigslist have become a haven for prostitution-related ads. In this paper, we quantify the economic impact of Craigslist's entry on prostitution incidence, and identify potential pathways in which the website affects the sex industry. Using a national panel data for 1,796 U.S. counties from 1999 to 2008, our results suggest that entry of Craigslist to a county is related to 26.61 percent increase in prostitution cases. In addition, our analyses investigates four key market mechanisms, namely the relationship to commercial vice, geographical trends, spillover effects, and enhanced policing efficacy. Our results contributes broadly to the emerging literature that researches the societal challenges associated with online intermediaries and Internet penetration.
AB - Online prostitution has flourished due to presence of online intermediaries. Despite the illegality of selling sexual services online, the Section 230 of Communications Decency Act shields websites from liability for unlawful postings by third parties. Consequently, the websites like Craigslist have become a haven for prostitution-related ads. In this paper, we quantify the economic impact of Craigslist's entry on prostitution incidence, and identify potential pathways in which the website affects the sex industry. Using a national panel data for 1,796 U.S. counties from 1999 to 2008, our results suggest that entry of Craigslist to a county is related to 26.61 percent increase in prostitution cases. In addition, our analyses investigates four key market mechanisms, namely the relationship to commercial vice, geographical trends, spillover effects, and enhanced policing efficacy. Our results contributes broadly to the emerging literature that researches the societal challenges associated with online intermediaries and Internet penetration.
KW - Classified ad websites
KW - Commercialized Vice
KW - Craigslist
KW - Online intermediaries
KW - Online platforms
KW - Prostitution
KW - Vice crimes
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85019484409&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85019484409&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85019484409
T3 - 2016 International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2016
BT - 2016 International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2016
PB - Association for Information Systems
Y2 - 11 December 2016 through 14 December 2016
ER -