The free classified website Craigslist which has ravaged newspaper classified revenues in many markets, is being sued by the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law for allegedly 'publishing' "discriminatory advertisements" which is against the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

The group of lawyers scanned Craigslist sites of various cities to find that some of its users posted ads that included terms such as "no kids allowed" or "no minorities." Because such ads are illegal in newspapers and on newspaper websites, the group argues that they cannot be published on websites independent of newspapers.

A lawyer for the group said, "We would like Craigslist to be under the same obligations and resulting factors as all other publishers, be they newspapers or magazines, that they do what is necessary and appropriate to make sure that classified ads comply with the Fair Housing Act."

Representatives of Craigslist argue that the very nature of the site distinguishes it from newspapers and that its users which form a community regularly report discriminatory ads with the click of a mouse.

CEO of Craigslist, Jim Buckmaster highlighted the differences between "old" and "new" media saying, "Craigslist is absolutely a different animal. It's a user-controlled commons where users submit, at this point, eight million ads of unlimited length. So when the lawyers group says they want Craigslist treated exactly as if it were a newspaper, on the face of it, that doesn't make any sense."

Source: New York Times