Craigslist not liable for illegal ads, court says

By Amanda Beck

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -
Craigslist is not liable for
discriminatory housing ads posted on its Web site, a federal
appeals court has ruled.

The decision is a victory for the Internet bulletin board
where every month more than 30 million people post offers to
buy, sell or rent goods and services, including housing, free
of charge.

A group of Chicago lawyers sued the Web site in 2006
because some of its housing notices illegally discriminate on
the basis of race, gender, religion and ethnicity.

Various ads say "no minorities" or "no children." Declaring
such preferences violates the U.S. Fair Housing Act and would
be illegal in a newspaper.

But a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit of the U.S.
Court of Appeals on Friday found that Craigslist
www.craigslist.org) is not the publisher of these ads, as a
newspaper would be.

Instead, the Web site is more like an intermediary carrying
information from one person to another and, therefore, not
liable for its content, the panel said in a ruling that upholds
a lower court decision.

The attorneys "cannot sue the messenger just because the
message reveals a third party's plan to engage in unlawful
discrimination," Judge Frank Easterbrook concluded.

He suggested the attorneys instead use Craigslist to find
landlords with discriminatory ads, then forward their names to
the state's attorney general for prosecution.

Craigslist spokeswoman Susan Best said she was pleased with
the court's decision on the issue, which is percolating in
other courts seeking to determine the responsibility that
Internet sites assume for their content.

For example, Viacom Inc. has brought a $1 billion lawsuit
against Google Inc. for the copyrighted content that appears on
the search engine's YouTube site.

Roommates is another housing site facing a legal
challenge for discriminatory ads.

As of Saturday, searches for housing listings on Craigslist
were posted with this warning: "Stating a discriminatory
preference in a housing post is illegal. Please flag
discriminatory posts as prohibited."

The San Francisco-based company is run by fewer than 30
people but offers classified ads and forums for more than 300
cities in the United States alone. In 2004, online auction site
eBay bought 25 percent of the firm's equity.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)

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