Craigslist not liable for housing ads: Judge

The Chicago Tribune reports:

The popular Craigslist Web site is not legally liable for allegedly discriminatory housing ads posted by its users, a federal judge in Chicago ruled in a case pitting landmark internet and fair housing laws against each other.

The decision was a victory for online civil liberties supporters. It was a setback for housing civil rights advocates, though they still found some hope in the judge's ruling.


The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law sued San Francisco-based Craigslist in February, claiming that during a six-month period, the site published more than 100 housing ads in Chicago that violated the federal Fair Housing Act.

Those ads included such declarations as "Non-women of Color NEED NOT APPLY" and "African Americans and Arabians tend to clash with me so that won't work out."

The 1968 Fair Housing Act bars housing discrimination, and newspapers and other publishers of ads deemed discriminatory can be held liable for violating the law.

But the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA), in an attempt to promote unfettered free expression online, shields web forums from liability for ads and opinions posted by their users.

That's what Craiglist argued in its defense in the Chicago case, and it was joined in friend-of-the-court filings by such Internet giants as Amazon.com, eBay, Google, Yahoo! and AOL.

A major victory in the free market for speech.I guess this puts the newspapers at a disadvantage because people can't say in the newspaper what they really want.