Craigslist received a boost in court last week from its giant Internet friends. Google, Amazon, AOL, and Yahoo! filed an “amicus brief” on behalf of the online listings site, which has been wrangling with discrimination lawsuit that, if successful, could have huge implications for Web site operators and their relationships with third party content providers.
Craigslist was sued in February for discrimination after Craigslist users, not the operators of the site itself, posted housing ads seeking specific types of tenants.
Lawyers for the plaintiff say that Craigslist has violated fair housing laws by facilitating discriminatory practices. Rental ads alluding to preferences for tenants of a certain race, religion, age, or sexual orientation are illegal to post in traditional print newspapers.
The defense has been citing the 1996 Communications Decency Act as a protection against third party posters. Some have argued that there should be no differential treatment between print publishers and Web publishers.
However, it is important to note that Web publishers do not always have immediate control of what is posted to their site, especially in the Web 2.0 era, contrary to print, where editors approve or disapprove of all content.
An amicus brief filed by the four Internet giants is a statement of support for Craigslist’s position. It argued that if the online classified site lost the case, it could “extremely negative implications” for online growth.
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