Craigslist Court Decision
By: Liam Lavery, General Counsel | November 16, 2006
Tuesday, a federal district court in Chicago dismissed a suit charging that craigslist’s housing listings violated the Fair Housing Act. This is a very significant decision for online real estate services and users.
In February, the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law sued craigslist for allegedly violating the Fair Housing Act, citing a hundred housing ads posted on chicago.craigslist.org over a six-month period (out of 200,000 ads total). The Fair Housing Act outlaws any advertisement "with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability or family status," and holds newspapers and other media outlets liable for publishing discriminatory ads. The defense relied on another federal law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states that no provider of an "interactive computer service" will be deemed the publisher of information posted by a user.
The plaintiffs found support from a Department of Housing and Urban Development memo asserting that the CDA does not overrule the FHA, and from a brief filed by the National Fair Housing Alliance. Several Web heavyweights, including Amazon.com, AOL, eBay, Google, Yahoo! and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, weighed in to support craigslist in the case.
U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve ruled that, under the CDA, craigslist was not liable as a publisher of the allegedly discriminatory ads. For its part, craigslist has always stated that it has "no need to hide behind this well-established immunity."
Certainly this is not the last word on the issue. The Chicago Lawyers Committee plans to appeal to the 7th Circuit, and in the interest of justice, the Committee (and HUD) can always go after discriminatory advertisers themselves. Still, this decision is a major victory for craigslist and self-policing real estate communities on the Web. Craigslist’s combination of user education and community self-moderation provides tools to combat housing discrimination without dampening the powerful consumer benefits of the craigslist service. As Deborah Platt Majoras, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, said last week, "On the Internet, consumers appear to reign supreme, and they can be very powerful and tough customers."
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Technology & Marketing Law Blog on November 17, 2006 11:31 am
Craigslist Wins 230 Defense in Fair Housing Case—Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under the Law v. Craigslist
By Eric Goldman Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under the Law, Inc. v. Craigslist, Inc., 1:06-CV-00657 (N.D. Ill. Nov….
Chicago Real Estate on November 19, 2006 6:47 am
I aggree that this was a significant decision for online real estate services and users.
Brent Fosso on December 3, 2006 9:51 am
As both a user of craigslist for their free service, and of zillow.com for their great information, I support fair housing rulings in general.
I see that it could be difficult though for craigslist, which does not inspect ad postings, but instead relies on users to “flag” a posting that should be removed.
Anything craigslist can do to encourage their users to support fair housing laws should be fully embraced.
As a Seattle real estate investor for over 20 years, I believe everyone must be treated equally and fairly.
Brent Fosso
http://www.IBuySeattleHomes.com
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Karim on March 6, 2007 12:53 am
Dear Sir/Madam,
I’m writing this message because our organization has been a victim of a terrible discrimination from Craigslist.com and I’m seeking advice and help from you. I believe that America stands for freedom and Justice and that is why we are here.
Craigslist.com staff have been deleting every ad we post since 02/22/2007 for no clear reason. Those ads were about “Arabic language and Culture Classes” I’m offering with over 40 teachers all over the US to bridge the American and the Arabic cultures in order to promote peace and understanding. We never violate any of the Craigslist.com policies and we can prove that.
I emailed them many times from 02/22/2007 to 02/24/2007 but never got any response!! I also called them and left them a few messages but never heard back from them. They completely ignored me. The same thing happened with another teacher in San Diego. We finally heard from their customer support two days later and they surprisingly suggested that we don’t post any link to our website (we were posting under the “services” category which allows advertisers to post URLs according to the Craigslist’s own policies)!!
We tried to understand what makes us an exception but never got an answer from the Web site’s customer service then we heard back from the owner of the site (Craig) after we told them that we might take action and sue them but he wasn’t serious at all about our concerns, repeatedly pretended that he “didn’t understand our question” and didn’t give us any clear explanation about the reason why they deleted our ads, and then blocked us from posting any new ads on craigslist.com. In fact his messages were extremely strange and we below you will see copies of them. Mr. Craig then contradicted his own customer support and said that the reason why they are deleting our ads is because “we are posting more than one ad in 48 hours in the whole nation!!” the contradicted his own self and accused us of “spamming craigslist.org because our teachers were using different email addresses!!!” We also do have many witnesses all over the United States. We believe this is a pure discrimination and we are seeking Justice.
Please help.
Yours sincerely,
Karim Mokhtar
Founder
kmoktar@carthageabc.com
http://www.carthageabc.com
Liam Lavery on March 6, 2007 5:05 pm
Sorry we can’t help you with your concerns about Craigslist. Sounds like you’re doing the right thing by talking to them.
Andre on July 28, 2008 12:36 pm
Does anyone know the updates about this case?
Liam on July 28, 2008 3:07 pm
Yes, Andre, two updates:
After the Chicago Lawyers Committee appealed, Craigslist won in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision (http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/fdocs/docs.fwx?submit=rss_sho&shofile=07-1101_021.pdf) came down in March 2008, and affirmed Craigslist’s defense under Section 230 of the CDA. Judge Easterbrook’s closing paragraph is a good summary:
“Using the remarkably candid postings on craigslist,
the Lawyers’ Committee can identify many targets to
investigate. It can dispatch testers and collect damages from any landlord or owner who engages in discrimination… It can assemble a list of names to send to the Attorney General for prosecution. But given §230(c)(1) it cannot sue the messenger [Craigslist] just because the message reveals a third party’s plan to engage in unlawful discrimination.”
A second recent development is this May’s decision in the Roommates.com case. Judge Kozinski’s opinion (at http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/F71559D8162BA7EE8825741F00771BC1/file/0456916.pdf) distinguished Roommates.com from Craigslist by the features Roommates.com offers enabling acts that are not permitted under housing discrimination laws, such as:
- questions the site asks users, e.g. roommate race preferences
- user profiles with pull-down menus for race and other characteristics
- its search system and email system that display results based on characteristics not permitted by housing laws.
I don’t know if Roommates.com is seeking an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but even under the 9th Circuit decision Roommates.com is not necessarily liable for violating any law. After rejecting Section 230 immunity for Roommates.com actions, the appeals court sent the case back to the trial court to decide whether those actions actually violate the law.
Professor Eric Goldman has some well considered thoughts on each case:
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2008/03/craigslist_gets.htm
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2008/04/roommatescom_de_1.htm