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Craigslist Under Attack for Bias in Housing Ads

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Feb 23, 2006 

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Sarah Novotny  |

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Craigslist Under Attack for Bias in Housing Ads

According to a New York Times report, a lawsuit has been filed against online classifieds leader Craigslist by the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The fair housing group is accusing the company for violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by publishing discriminatory advertisements.

If the Lawyers’ Committee wins out with the lawsuit, Craigslist will be forced to follow the same rules newspapers do in their classified advertising listings, screening each ad to make sure no antidiscrimination laws are violated. As a result, this means ads like the ones the lawyers’ group said it spotted on Craigslist in a six-month investigation would be banned.

It’s a precarious situation for the hugely popular company, which permits anonymous users to post free ads that are unedited, unscreened and of unlimited length.
In a statement on Craiglist’s site, CEO Jim Buckmaster, stated that manually screening “the nearly two million free housing ads of unlimited length posted each month, a volume of ads greater than that received by all U.S. newspapers combined,” would be inappropriate and counterproductive.

The housing group claims that some of the ads spotted on Craigslist contained language like “African-Americans and Arabians tend to clash with me” and “No kids allowed.” Other ads the group flagged gave requirements like “single occupancy only” or “no minorities.”
Ads of that nature are illegal in newspapers and other publications, and the Lawyers’ Committee says they should be banned online as well. The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to publish ads that exclude potential tenants on the basis of race, gender, marital status, national origin and religion.

According to a report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a research group, users of online classified ad services increased 80 percent in 2005 from a year earlier, to 26.3 million. Nearly nine million of those users posted ads on Craigslist. The report was based on data gathered by comScore Media Metrix.

Craigslist has until March 15 to respond to the lawsuit.

Tags: craigslist, legal_issues and online_classifieds

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