Hookers Today Depend on Tech for Success

Spitzer case shows how web, IMs, e-funds drive business
By Sam Gale Rosen,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 12, 2008 4:44 PM CDT
Hookers Today Depend on Tech for Success
The District of Columbia flag flies next to the one for the Mayflower Hotel outside of the hotel in Washington on Monday March 10, 2008. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned today over his involvement in a prostitution ring. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)   (Associated Press)

Eliot Spitzer's woes are shedding light on the new world of the oldest profession. Prostitutes and escort services use online social networking to find business, IMs to record the time spent with a client, and the web to make payment simpler and more private, reports the AP. New technology also widens the divide between "indoor and outdoor" prostitution, says a sex industry expert.

On online message boards, customers discuss and rate different prostitutes. "She is the real deal. She's bright, funny, enthusiastic, beautiful, flawless body, really loves what she does," a patron gushes about one woman on the site bigdoggie.com. Meanwhile, some authorities say that the web also allows escort services and prostitutes to avoid repercussions for their illegal actions. (More Eliot Spitzer stories.)

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