Craigslist - Sometimes a Guilty Pleasure, but Not Guilty

For those of you who aren't familiar with Craigslist.org (!?!?), it is a site where people can post goods and services for rent or sale.  With the exception of job postings (in some cities/regions) the postings are free.  I've bought and sold many a mobile phone on Craigslist.  I sold a car on Craigslist and know a few people who have bought cars and even rented apartments through the site.

The legal trouble came about because of some of those apartment listings.

Here's the scoop from Reuters Amanda Beck

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

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.

Craig's (I don't think I'm the only one who refers to Craigslist by "Craig's") is basically a bulletin board.  They're just leaving an open invitation to anyone with something to sell or rent. There are various warnings reminding you that there is no Craigslist payment system and that you should be wary of overseas transactions.  There is now also a message asking users to flag rental notices with illegal rental terms.  Flagging is a system by which users can submit a posting for review.


If Craig's charged for posting a rental they might be in some trouble.  It could probably be argued that, if they took money in exchange for displaying the posting, they'd be as liable as a newspaper would be. 

Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, who wrote the majority opinion, suggested that instead of suing Craigslist that the attorney's who brought the suit use the listings to find and sue the landlords who are posting the illegal listings.

Good call, Judge.