AGs: Backpage.com should to drop adult service ads

(AP) -- Connecticut's attorney general says he and colleagues in 20 states are calling on another classified ads website to its drop adult services section.

Richard Blumenthal, also a U.S. Senate candidate, said Tuesday the state attorneys general have sent a joint letter to Backpage.com. He says they also are asking the site to develop better safeguards to prevent illegal prostitution and child trafficking ads from migrating to the site's other sections.

Craigslist closed its adult services section earlier this month after the attorneys general and others raised concerns it could not effectively screen out illegal ads.

Blumenthal estimates Backpage makes $17.5 million from prostitution ads. A message left with a spokesman for Village Voice Media, which owns Backpage, was not immediately returned Tuesday.