Citing the signing of the FOSTA bill into law, USASexGuide, a multi-city bulletin board offering, as XBIZ elegantly phrases it, “forum categories that mirror the full spectrum of places where men go to seek out pleasure,” has temporarily suspended operation.
USASexGuide’s owner posted the following notice online, at USASexGuide.info and its sister site USAAdultClassifieds.info:
On April 11, 2018 President Trump signed into law the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017(FOSTA) which provides criminal penalties for anyone who “owns, manages, or operates an interactive computer service…with the intent to promote or facilitate the prostitution of another person“.
Accordingly I am temporarily suspending the operation of this website for a brief period until it can be sold to a non-US citizen who will host the website on a server in their home country (Russia, The Ukraine, Malta, who knows where).
This sale may also result in the changing of the site’s domain name, so pay attention.
We will post updates on the status of this sale and transfer here and on our temporary FaceBook Page.
You may also follow the progress on our temporary Twitter account @A2sAutoReviews.
Please have patience. This will only take a few days.
Thank You
USASexGuide ran so-called “johns’ boards,” where users could discuss escorts, massage parlors, strip clubs and streetwalkers in 17 American cities. The site has long been a forum where “mongers” could provide information about, and offer / solicit assistance to facilitate meeting with, local sex workers.
FOSTA Fallout
After FOSTA’s passage in the U.S. Senate (but before it became law), a number of adult service websites responded by shuttering operations or focusing on non-U.S. clientele. CityVibe.com and Nightshift.co closed their sites, while Craigslist cut its personals listings.
As we reported, TheEroticReview.com closed its site to all U.S. traffic, and last week the U.S. government seized Backpage.com.
Thursday, its CEO turned state’s evidence in exchange for a lighter sentence.
