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Craigslist Not Liable for Biased Housing Ads

The Internet site Craigslist is not liable for discriminatory real estate ads because it is not the publisher or creator of those postings, which are made by its users, according to a ruling by a Chicago federal judge.

The judge granted Craigslist's motion for judgment in a case testing a provision of the Communications Decency Act that says online service providers are not responsible for information posted by users.

The law preempts state tort claims against the service providers if those claims would treat the provider as a traditional publisher of information submitted by another person or entity. The statute has been applied mainly in defamation cases.

Craigslist operates Web sites in several large cities throughout the United States, including Chicago. The sites let users post classified ads for apartments, jobs and goods for sale as well as personal ads and other miscellaneous postings.

The Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law Inc. filed suit under the Fair Housing Act, alleging Craigslist Inc. published rental and sales ads that showed preferences, limitations or discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, national origin or familial status.

Some of the rental postings included comments such as, "No Minorities," "African-Americans and Arabians tend to clash with me," and "Only Muslims need apply."

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve of the Northern District of Illinois agreed with Craigslist that the Communications Decency Act trumped federal housing laws in this case.

Beginning with Zeran v. America Online Inc., 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997), courts have held, almost without fail, that Section 230 of the statute grants immunity in suits where plaintiffs seek to hold online service providers or Web sites liable for third-party content.

In crafting Section 230, Congress recognized that the amount of information sent and received via interactive computer services was "staggering," Judge St. Eve said. She noted that according to Craigslist, its users post more than 10 million new notices in a typical month.

The National Fair Housing Alliance filed a friend-of the-court brief in support of the Chicago lawyers. The nonprofit corporation represents about 85 fair-housing organizations nationwide.

Craigslist also received support in a joint amicus brief submitted by 10 companies and trade associations affiliated with the online and electronic communication industries, including powerhouses AOL, Amazon.com, eBay, Google and Yahoo!