Facebook replacing Craigslist for prostitutes
Found on CNet News on Tuesday, 08 February 2011
When Craigslist withdrew from the adult services business last year, some wondered whether the prostitution business would be driven to less obvious and, perhaps, more dangerous places.
Venkatesh estimates that 83 percent of prostitutes have a Facebook page. Moreover, he believes that by the end of 2011, Facebook "will be the leading online recruitment space."
Even in 2008, he estimates that 25 percent of prostitutes' regular clients came through Facebook (compared with only 3 percent through Craigslist).
It's so tempting to sign up only to see their lists of "friends" and who likes them. It shouldn't take too long until someone scrapes their Facebook pages and does some data mining on the collected information.