With all the talk about whether or not losing newspapers will be the end of quality, objective, journalism we can count on, we’ve missed talking about what it means to consumers to have to deal with classifieds and other advertising that goes on unpoliced – something we never had to be concerned about with quality newspapers. 

No, I’m not talking about erotic services. I’m talking about fraudulent ads – employment ads that require you to pay up front, listing services that advertise in help-wanted categories, assembly ads, obituaries that aren’t verified, and so forth. Consumers don’t think much about them, probably – and that’s because for decades reputable newspapers have done a great job of weeding them out prior to publication. My first classified employer, The Sacramento Bee, had a training manual that exceeded 200 pages, and we spent 2.5 weeks learning that and the classified front end system before we ever got on the phone. Bogus federal job ads didn’t get into the newspaper, and if someone wanted to run a rental ad in an “exclusive” neighborhood they were headed off at the classified path. That was discriminatory and it wouldn’t run in our newspaper.

Now, there are sites like BluePlanet Classifieds and others, who either don’t know how to do classifieds, or just don’t care. About a year ago I came across a classified site whose name escapes me now, that was allowing self-service funeral notices and obituaries, with no confirmation. I submitted my own obit just to see what would happen. It ran. Now BluePlanet launches with fraudulent business opportunities ads listed under Jobs, and my very favorite example of misclassification, under Vans for Sale:

Hello, A reputable company under the american governments is requesting for the services of an experience and well mannered driver.any interested applicant should please contact back the company”s personel manager via……..

Another “job” ad offers a list of thousands of work-at-home companies to make $1000′s from home, if only you would send $25 to the poster’s PayPal account.

Then there’s the ad for the Jaguar driven by the Prime Minister of Canada.

There is no flagging capability, no way to let the site owner know that the ad appears fraudulent, inappropriate or miscategorized, (Though we suspect at least some of these ads have been seeded, which, of course, would make that effort moot.) There is a review feature, but that only allows you to publish your review of the listing on the site. It doesn’t put the ad in front of the site administrator for further investigation.

“It’s all about ease of use,” said Ananda Chinta, president of BluePlanetClassifieds.com, in the announcement of the site launch. Would that it had been all about protecting consumers from fraudulent and miscategorized ads.