Craigslist Suit Raises Red Flags

Craigslist Suit Raises Red Flags
By Rosmond Jones Dolen Esq.
Units (publication of National Apartment Association)
April 2006 issue

Two legal documents provide conflicting advice regarding online real estate postings. The Fair Housing Act (FHA) says that it is illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status and national origin in regard to real estate sale or rental transaction. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), however, states that providers or users of interactive computer services are not considered publishers or speakers of content/information provided by a third party.

This conflict potentially immunizes online “publishers” such as Craigslist from being persecuted for discriminatory housing practices. The CDA does allow, however, for persecution of the person who posts the ads. Often the identity of the individual is not known due to anonymous posts or encoded information, which is held by website and not readily distributed.

Often legal action is taken against the publishing organization for a few reasons. First, corporations have deeper pockets. Suing an individual for discriminatory listings would be less lucrative and more difficult. Second, suing a publisher has the effect of forcing the organization to be more proactive in the elimination and monitoring of all adds effectively creating a more widespread solution to the problem.

Further difficulties arise in the definition of “discriminatory ads” examples given in the article range from “only Muslims apply,” to “Very quiet street across from church.” The latter being, apparently, implicitly discriminatory because some residents prefer the situation over others.

Suggestions given by the article to avoid discrimination include:
Follow the requirements of the FHA
Don’t try to circumvent the law by posting discriminatory content anonymously
If in doubt, check HUD’s guidance to advertising online
Report housing discrimination