Thomas Dart, the Illinois sheriff who took Craigslist to court over erotic advertisements that appeared on the popular classifieds site, is unhappy with this week’s decision of a federal judge to toss the lawsuit (full ruling embedded below).

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Dart (pictured) said he was disappointed with the verdict and is now considering an appeal.

OLX and hi5, both challengers to dominating juggernauts in their respective fields (online classifieds and social networking), have teamed up to expose each others’ admittedly vast but geographically spread audience to one another. OLX says it currently boasts 70 million unique visitors each month across 90 countries, largely thanks to existing partnerships with services that have historically seen most of their growth in Latin-America and Asia (Friendster, MySpace Lat-Am, Fotolog etc.), while hi5 claims 60 million monthly unique visitors from 200 countries.

Even with a reasonable amount of overlap accounted for, these are significant numbers, albeit in countries where potential advertising income is generally much lower than it is in the U.S. and Europe. OLX (a competitor to Craigslist in the United States) and hi5 (a competitor to the likes of Facebook and MySpace on a global level) claim the fresh partnership serves to consolidate both companies’ hold on the Latin American market, while making way for accelerated growth in the rest of the world.

Anyone see Funny People this weekend? One of the best movies I’ve seen this year, despite the 10 minute MySpace commercial in the middle of it.

The two main characters, Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen, visit MySpace for a $300,000 paid comedy gig. Among a variety of “f**ck Facebook, In the Face” jokes (said two or three times. really) was some really good material, including Rogen asking “I wonder if Tom and Craig from Craigslist would ever get in a fight….Who’s tougher? Tom has more friends…Craig has weirder friends though. Craig has friends that are willing to do a lot more for cash, I’ll say that.”

Sandler also says “They say the more friends you have on MySpace the less friends you have in real life.”

MySpace cofounder Tom Anderson was also on set and part of the movie, and has now officially been mixed up with another Tom Anderson on IMDB. Overall it was an amazing commercial for MySpace. The company says they did not pay for the placement.

Another public official of South Carolina shames himself: Governor Mark Sanford is extremely sad that he got caught cheating on his wife. The video is here, the transcript is here. Bottom line, he says “I’ve been unfaithful to my wife.” Read all about it everywhere.

All I’m wondering is, where’s South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster when we need him? Adultery is serious business. This is clearly, somehow, all Craigslist’s fault. For example, how do we know that Sanford didn’t meet his mistress in the adultery section of Craigslist? And also, can we please kick South Carolina out of the Union now?

A coalition of non-profit organizations, technology developers, designers, marketers and others has unveiled the alpha version of a new Web service dubbed All for Good in an effort to build some sort of ‘Craigslist for volunteer services’. The metaphor stands, and not only because Craig Newmark from the popular free classifieds service is one of the backers of the project (Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post is also said to be on board).

All for Good basically lets you browse volunteer activities and find related events based on your geographical location and/or interests. The site brings together listings from organizations and local groups to help you find volunteer activities that fit your time and talent. If you ‘like’ a certain item, you can share it with your friends across various social networking services, hopefully spawning more attention and the possibility for the activity or event to spread virally within your network.

And you thought the South Carolina v. Craigslist story was dead.

If anything sucks more than being the target of an ambitious but delusional gubernatorial candidate who has suddenly developed a bit of a fetish for prostitution, it’s being ignored by that candidate. As far as Village Voice sees the world, Craigslist just got a bunch of free press. And they want their share.

When Craigslist management was facing a criminal investigation for listings on the site they did the smart thing. They talked about the law, and they pointed out that the real smut was on other sites that were being ignored by the South Carolina Attorney General. If you really want hard core porn and prostitution, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster pointed out, check out Village Voice’s BackPage.com.

That’s all body fluids under the bridge now, of course, since a federal judge smacked down McMaster and forbid him from stalking Craigslist management.

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster gets served his final humiliation: a federal judge, U.S. District Judge Weston Houck, blocked him from prosecuting Craigslist management, at least until he’s made a final decision on the case. From the order: “Until the Court rules on the merits of craigslist’s claims, Defendants and their attorneys and staffs shall refrain from initiating or pursuing any prosecution against craigslist or its officers and employees in relation to content posted by third parties on craigslist’s website.”

The consent order granting the restraining order is embedded below.

McMaster started the war earlier this month by threatening criminal prosecution against Craigslist and Craigslist management for allowing pornographic images and ads for prostitution on the South Carolina Craigslist site. Craigslist took extraordinary steps to comply with McMaster’s demands, despite the fact that legal experts questioned if McMaster even had a case.

Craigslist stood firm and filed suit against McMaster in federal court. McMaster, now facing charges of his own, declared victory and ran away.

“We are winning!”

- Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, declaring victory in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, adding “We have them surrounded in their tanks.”

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster pulls an “al-Sahhaf” by declaring victory in the Craigslist debacle:

Columbia, SC – “The defensive legal action craigslist has taken against the solicitors and my office is good news. It shows that craigslist is taking the matter seriously for the first time

More importantly, overnight they have removed the erotic services section from their website, as we asked them to do. And they are now taking responsibility for the content of their future advertisements. If they keep their word, this is a victory for law enforcement and for the people of South Carolina.

Unfortunately, we had to inform them of possible state criminal violations concerning their past practices to produce a serious response. We trust they will now adhere to the higher standards they have promised. This office and the law enforcement agencies of South Carolina will continue to monitor the site to make certain that our laws are respected.”

Craigslist is suing South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster in the state’s federal court, seeking declaratory relief as well as a restraining order with respect to criminal charges he has threatened against the company and its executives. The company is raising the gloves because it refuses to shut down its operations in South Carolina, claiming it’s in full compliance with all applicable laws and has already done enough by removing its ‘erotic services’ category.

Guess who we’re rooting for here? (Hint: We’ve encouraged the executive team at Craigslist to stand firm from the get-go). After all, our own poll shows that given the choice between keeping Craigslist or South Carolina, most of you would choose Craigslist. That is not too surprising. But even some people in South Carolina say Craigslist is more important than the state. And don’t forget the all-important “McMaster, stop abusing your power” Facebook group.

Facing certain prosecution, Craigslist decided to strike first with its own lawsuit. In a blog post, amusingly tagged ‘harrassment’ (sic), that went up earlier this morning, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster writes:

The poll results from yesterday are in, and it isn’t even close. 80% of you think Craigslist (46 million US visitors) is more important than South Carolina (4.5 million residents). Background on the conflict is here.

The numbers are obviously not statistically relevant since TechCrunch readers, a tech savvy lot, are going to be more likely to side with Craigslist. But South Carolinians (or whatever it’s supposed to be) apparently aren’t too thrilled with their state, either. The Palmetto Scoop, a popular conservative blog in South Carolina, held their own poll today and asked “Which is more important, 2,500 TechCrunch readers (the total number that had voted as of this post) or enforcing the law?”

As of right now, 60% of the 124 respondents say, well, TechCrunch is more important than enforcing the law (which isn’t really what the Craigslist issue is about anyway).

Your conservative voters have spoken, Mr Attorney General McMaster. We’ll draw up the secession paperwork for your signature.

South Carolina has the dubious distinction of being the first state to secede from the United States, in 1860. You could say that they had very strong feelings on the issue of slavery. If they’re still up for it, I say let them leave. Craigslist is way more important than they are.

Congratulations to Craigslist for standing up to South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and demanding an apology. The situation they find themselves in, facing threatened criminal prosecution, is absurd. I stand by my post last night that Craigslist should simply shut down the South Carolina site permanently, and discontinue any negotiations with the state. McMaster has no basis for threatening civil or criminal action, and this is clearly just a way for him to get press in his bid for governor. A Facebook group has sprung up around this as well.

But as an aside, this whole drama has made me wonder, just how important is South Carolina anyway? If it really came down to choosing between South Carolina and Craigslist, how many people would rather have South Carolina?

South Carolina a former slave state that has less than 4.5 million people and a median income of under $40,000/year, 39th in the U.S. 92% of the state’s residents are Christian, and the gross state product is around $150 billion. A main driver of economic activity is tobacco. On the upside, I hear Myrtle beach is nice, and my co-editor Erick Schonfeld’s mother lives there.

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster is giving even the normally sleazy Attorney General title a bad name. This is an office that has little to do with protecting the public and everything to do with making high profile attacks on targets that will generate a lot of positive press. All that press leads to a run for higher office.

Eliot Spitzer was the alpha male Attorney General, attacking the securities industry, Internet fraud and the mortage industry, among others. He was rewarded with the governorship of New York until his spectacular resignation.

Which brings us back to the subject of hookers, and South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster. Earlier this month McMaster, who is of course eyeing a run for governor, threatened criminal prosecution against Craigslist management if pornography and ads for prostitution were not removed from the site. Craigslist took extraordinary measures to comply.

But quiet compliance isn’t what McMaster is looking for. He wants handcuffs and a trial, and issued the following statement on Saturday “As of 5:00 p.m. this afternoon, the craigslist South Carolina site continues to display advertisements for prostitution and graphic pornographic material. This content was not removed as we requested. We have no alternative but to move forward with criminal investigation and potential prosecution.”

After coming under increasing scrutiny from various state attorneys general for the open prostitution listings in its “erotic services” category, Craigslist is now folding in the face of criminal charges.The company said in a blog post that it will replace the erotic services category with a new “Adult services” category where each ad will be individually reviewed before posting.

Existing ads in the erotic services category will remain for seven days, but already new ads are not being accepted in that category. People trying to place an ad in the adult category are reminded: “Ads suggesting or implying an exchange of sexual favors for money are strictly prohibited” and “Ads including pornographic images, or images suggestive of an offer of sexual favors are strictly prohibited.”

OLX, the Craigslist for the rest of the world, has raised $5 million in funding from from Nexus Capital India. The company raised $13.5 million in Series B funding in April 2008 from General Catalyst Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Founders Fund and DN Capital, bringing the total funding raised to $28.5 million. OLX raised $13.5 million in Series B funding in April 2008 from the same investors as above, and raised an undisclosed Series A round of $10 million in September 2006 with the same VCs and various angels participating.

While the free classifieds site has trouble competing with Craigslist in the U.S., OLX has a strong user base internationally. With a presence in more than 87 countries in 39 languages, OLX’s popularity lies mainly in Spain, India, Portugal, Mexico, South America, China, and the Philippines.

The various state attorneys general have focused like a laser on Craigslist these past weeks. Like most politicians hoping to get reelected, Attorneys General tend to follow the press and jump in front of any parade they see.

Years ago if a crime was committed and anyone involved had a MySpace account, the press focused only on the MySpace angle. The attorneys general went after them with a vengeance. Then it was Facebook, who managed to stay in the spotlight only momentarily.

Now Craigslist is firmly in the AGs’ sites. And those AGs aren’t going to just sit by and do nothing as mainstream press paints a horrifying picture of sexual debauchery and murder. There’s easy press out there for the taking, people, and these AGs aren’t going to let this opportunity pass them by.

Earlier today Henry McMaster, the Attorney General of South Carolina, wrote to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster. The letter, copied below, starts with “I hope you will take immediate steps to end craigslist from being used to facilitate harmful activities in South Carolina.” It ends with a threat of “criminal investigation and prosecution” if ads for prostitution aren’t removed from the South Carolina parts of craigslist by this Friday.

McMaster also expressed concern that pornographic images were displayed on Craigslist and were accessible by minors.

Craigslist is a cool place to buy and sell stuff, it has a massive audience and you don’t have to pay the listing fees that Ebay charges. On the downside, though, Craigslist doesn’t have any method for conducting auctions, a proven way to get a good price for whatever you’re selling.

My friend Keith Teare solved that problem, though, by using a combination of a Craigslist listing for a computer he wanted to sell with a Google Docs spreadsheet and form to take bids on the item. Here’s how he did it.

Here’s the listing for his Power Mac G5. He points to a form (created with Google Docs) to accept bids, and a read-only spreadsheet showing the various bids. Each entry was timestamped, so he was able to cut off bids at the appropriate end time.

eBay is having second thoughts about how easy it will be to spread the Kijiji brand in the U.S. The company is testing out the name “eBay Classifieds” in two cities, San Antonio and Pittsburgh. A letter sent out to Kijiji members states:

We here at Kijiji thought it made a lot of sense to start using the eBay brand name. After all, we are part of the eBay family and we are a classifieds site…so “eBay Classifieds” just seemed like a good idea.

Maybe it also has something to do with the “j”s and “i”s blending together beyond recognition in “Kijiji.” It’s not just the name that needs work. The number of visitors to Kijiji sites worldwide was up only 7 percent in January to 23.2 million, while Craigslist grew six times faster and widened the gap. It ended January with 41.4 million unique visitors (comScore numbers).

How bad is the economy? In an effort to raise money for his rent, one man named Victor is trying to sell his Digg account on Craigslist for $650. It’s not because Victor is a power user on Digg. The name of the account is “youtube” His post on Craigslist reads:

Corkin is a new web service that combines classifieds listings with a set of social tools that the company says differentiates it from juggernauts such as Craigslist and eBay’s Kijiji. Like corkboards you’d find outside of local supermarkets, libraries and on college campuses, Corkin wants to be the website everyone uses to post free classified ads about anything.

Every aspect of Corkin has a social element to it; users can comment on listings, comment on photos, reply to comments, send direct messages, etc. and the company founders believe this makes them a better service than Craigslist, eBay / Kijiji and the countless other classifieds sites you can find on the net. The site sports the same spartan look Craigslist does (but including annoying in-your-face ads), and the founders of Corkin realize that they’re going to have to fight an uphill battle trying to beat them.

We’ve come across two new services that help make perusing Craigslist even easier by focusing on the images that are included with many listings. Craigslist notes which listings have images attached to them, but you must click through to the listing to actually see them. Both of these tools help you see the images up front, before actually clicking on the listings. That saves time, and clicks.