Court: Craigslist not liable for third party listings

A three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that the online classifieds website Craigslist is not liable for discriminatory housing ads posted on its Web site.

The company was sued by a group of Chicago lawyers who stated that some of its housing notices illegally discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion and ethnicity.

They had claimed that such ads violated the U.S. Fair Housing Act and would be illegal in a newspaper.

The panel said that the service is not liable for these ads as they are not the publishers of the ad as is the case with the newspapers.

The panel added that the service is just acting as intermediary carrying information from one person to another.

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