A three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled (PDF) that popular online bulletin board service Craigslist is not liable for discriminatory housing ads its users post to the service. In its ruling, the judges found that Craigslist acts as an an intermediary of communications from one person to another, rather than as a publisher like a newspaper, and is therefore not liable for the ads’ content. Judge Frank Easterbook wrote in his conclusion that the plaintiffs “cannot sue the messenger just because the message reveals a third party’s plan to engage in unlawful discrimination.”
The suit was brought against the popular listing service in 2006 by a Chicago-based group of lawyers, who claimed that Craigslist violated the U.S. Fair Housing Act by allowing illegal posts that discriminated on the basis of gender, ethnicity, race, and religion. And, indeed, housing advertisements on Craigslist for many areas commonly list criteria that would be illegal to publish in a newspaper, such as “no minorities” or “no children.”
The decision upholds a lower court ruling, and may have a ripple effect on similar suits against Internet sites that host content uploaded by users. Roommates.com is facing a similar suit over discriminatory housing ads, and the decision may even reach as far as Viacom’s billion-dollar suit against Google’s video sharing service YouTube.
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