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Appeals Court Denies Safe Harbor for Roommates.com
Mariner writes "The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Roommates.com Safe Harbor status under the Communications Decency Act in a lawsuit brought by the Fair Housing Councils of San Fernando Valley and San Diego. Roommates.com was accused of helping landlords discriminate against certain kinds of tenants due to a couple of questions on the Roommates.com registration form: gender and sexual orientation. 'Though it refused to rule on whether Roommates.com actually violated the Fair Housing Act, the Court did find that it lost Section 230 immunity because it required users to enter that information in order to proceed. As Judge Alex Kozinski put it in his opinion, "if it is responsible, in whole or in part, for creating or developing the information, it becomes a content provider and is not entitled to CDA immunity."'"
You don't have to get all pissy about the "no fags or bitches" part of my flier.
Whenever you see ads in the paper for folks looking for roommates, you always see several things:
Female looking for female.
Male looking for female or male roommate
Gay man looking for roommate,
etc...
What's wrong with entering that information so you can be matched up with someone that you'll be compatible with?
If you were unknowingly matched up with a gay man, and you're a devout Evangelical Christian, boy, there's going to be some rough patches! The same goes with women who would feel really uncomfortable with rooming with a guy.
Geeze! Sometimes the law isn't realistic.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Since the site's purpose is clearly to find roommates and not tenants, you should have more latitude in what kind of questions you can ask. When you accept a roommate, you do much more than engage in landlord/tenant relationship. Finding a roommate is a process of creating a household. And anyone should be able to choose what kind of household they live in.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
If I'm looking for a roommate, why shouldn't I be able to filter for gender and sexual orientation? For that matter, maybe I'm a racist jerk and don't want black or asian roommates. Isn't that my right, regardless of how silly it might seem to someone else?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The fair housing act doesn't always apply, there are times when it is legal to discriminate based on gender etc. http://www.hud.gov/offices/fheo/FHLaws/yourrights. cfm
There is an exemption for owner occupied buildings (i.e. you want to rent out that extra bedroom in your house). Also if you are just looking for a roommate, you are not the landlord so it would similarly not apply, in fact I would think this would be protected under the 1st amendment as freedom of association.
As regards violating the Fair Housing Act, there is a shared living exception. It seems to me that if roommates.com added a "shared living" checkbox to its form, it could AJAX-open the additional fields regarding gender and sexuality, and thus avoid falling afoul of the FHA. Roommates.com would still not be covered by the Section 230 exception of the Communications Decency Act, but it wouldn't need it.
How on earth is it Roommates.com's fault is LANDLORDS are abusing the system to discriminate? Be like looking someon up on Myspace, and denying them a job because of some pictures put up. Is it Myspace.com's fault?
I hope they are atleast suing the landlords that were abusing this info. Thats the problem with information on the net, its accessible to everyone, weather they should have it or not. I understand nailing landlords to the cross for abusing this info, but I totaly fail to understand how this is the websites fault for supplying the information. Its even submitted by the people themselves...its not like it wasn't wanted to be known..
> I don't see how a content site that collects confidential information that may be used in a
> screening process can possibly be considered a common carrier under anyone's definition of the term.
You are correct... as far as that reasoning goes. But the CORRECT ruling (yea, good luck getting a sane ruling in CA) would have been to toss the case on the grounds that neither the "Fair Housing Act" nor the CDA pass Constituitional muster. The CDA fails on 1st and 10th Amendment grounds and the FHA on 10th. So it should have been tossed back into state courts.
Listen up pinheads, people have the right to be wrong. At least 'wrong' from your point of view. Since Stallman already has claimed Freedom Zero call this one Freedom -1. For if you claim the right to tell someone they are wrong and must agree with you, you are asserting yourself as their master. And the odds approach 100% that sooner or later everyone else is going to think one of your cherished beliefs/practices is 'wrong' and impose their will on you. And having given up the principles of Freedom you will have no moral argument to offer as to why you should be left in peace.
Tolerence isn't allowing people you agree with to do things you approve of, it is permitting people you don't like to do things you disapprove of so long as they don't use force or fraud against others. Yes that means yo have to tolerate the intolerant sometimes.
Democrat delenda est
I'd just like to point out how the word "discrimination" has been hijacked. Discrimination is a good, useful, and necessary thing. Whenever you make a choice about something being better than something else, that's discrimination. You want and need to discriminate.
For particular reasons, discrimination based on certain factors (race, color, religion, sex, and national origin) for certain purposes (housing, voting, employment, and public services) has been made illegal. Any other kind is perfectly legal.
Here, you've assumed that any kind of discrimination is bad. You're talking about illegal discrimination.
They aren't. If you try to leave it blank, you get bounced with a message that you have to go back and fill it in.
I am an attorney who has defended landlords and apartment managers in fair housing cases since 1985. I believe that housing discrimination is wrong and should be illegal.
There's a bit of a difference between a corporate-owned, professionally-managed apartment complex selecting applicants for leases, and a single person who needs a roommate in her apartment.
Do you think a 100lbs. single woman shouldn't be allowed to discriminate on the basis of gender when she's selecting roommates? If so, then you are a loon.
As far as I'm concerned, people should be able to pick whomever they want as their roommate, using any criteria they want.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.