Craigslist Crime 'Study' -- Sour Grapes & Cheap Whine

A recent "study" claims that Craigslist is about as safe as a skinny-dip in a shark tank. If you believe that, give me a call -- I know a Nigerian prince who's dying to meet you.

Consulting firm AIM Group authored the hit piece, which claims Craigslist is linked to 330 U.S. crimes in the past year, including over 100 robberies and 12 deaths. AIM Group founder Peter Zollman was shocked -- shocked! -- at the murder and mayhem, and pronounced Craigslist a "cesspool of crime."

I see a cesspool all right, but Craigslist isn't the one swimming in it.

First, a minor quibble: Ooodle.com bought and paid for the report. Oodle is a Craigslist competitor, and it's safe to say that there's bad blood between the two companies. In 2005, for example, Craigslist slapped Oodle with a cease-and-desist letter for reposting its listings.

If that doesn't raise a red flag, then behold this gem from Zollman's blog post:

To be fair, Craigslist as an entity can’t be blamed for the things that happen among its users. It’s merely a facilitator of commerce, after all. And we understand thousands or even tens of thousands of transactions happen safely between Craigslist aficionados.

As Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster pointed out, Zollman's abacus is missing a few beads. "Try hundreds of millions or billions of safe transactions," wrote Buckmaster in his own rebuttal of the study.

There's the catch: Look at enough face-to-face interactions, and you're going to find a certain amount of crime. It's true whether you're doing a deal on Craigslist or walking to the corner store for a six-pack. AIG doesn't sweat that detail, since its research methodology consists of a glorified police blotter. There's no statistical analysis and no attempt to provide context.

Since they won't do it, I will:

• The number of Craigslist postings last year in North America: 573 million.
• The percentage of those posts associated with serious crimes: 0.00005 percent.
• Your odds of picking a random Craigslist post associated with one of those crimes: 1 in 2 million.
• Your odds of being killed on an airplane: about 1 in 844,000.

I won't tell you the odds of dying in a car wreck. You won't like that number one bit.

I also got a chuckle out of Oodle's claim that it's safer to use than Craigslist because Oodle requires users to create an account or to use a Facebook profile to identify themselves.

Facebook? Really? Have these clowns ever used Facebook?

In the interest of fairness, I visited Oodle.com and created an account. Mr. John Dillinger is now a registered Oodle user, courtesy of a disposable email address.

That's some rock-solid security you've got there, guys. If Craigslist publishes a study linking one of your users to a string of Dust Bowl bank robberies, I'll take the heat.

Here's some wisdom you won't get from the AIM Group's asinine smear campaign: Common sense is a priceless commodity. Practice it, and you're far less likely to be a crime victim no matter where you go or what you do.

Here's another: Given enough people and enough personal interactions, bad things will happen. Deal with it.

As for Oodle.com, all I can say is that sour grapes sure make cheap whine.