Roommates.com can be sued for violating fair housing laws, court rules
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The law of coasting quirk of nature of the Internet. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals decided Thursday, a website are responsible for the violation of the laws roommate fair housing by gender, sexual orientation and family planning. From the federal law on the protection of sites “was not designed for a gesetzloses, no man’s land, on the Web,” the court in San Francisco said in a 8-3 decision. The judge said a page called Roommates.com May to justice, perhaps in order to violate anti-discrimination laws because it is necessary for users to provide information on sex, sexual orientation, and if they have children, then using De information for people on the screen. “A real estate broker can not call into question, such as race, a potential buyer, and the employer can not call into question, such as religion, a potential that workers,” Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the majority. “If such issues, which are illegal, whether face to face, by telephone, it is not magic, if you have applied for legal on-line electronically.” The decision to deal a blow against the shield of immunity that the federal law has helped to sustain the expansion of the Internet. In the case of lawyers, said, the trend for the federal courts were to the protection of sites of responsibility. The three judges, who called for a dominant opinion “unprecedented expansion of liability,” the Internet-chill growth. She said that the decision would be in contradiction with the decisions of five other provinces, the courts and called threat protection mechanisms for all interactive Web sites. Only three weeks, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has even a challenge to the mass publicity of the case classified site Craig List. The decision “it is very difficult for providers website to see if their activities are deemed immune” of the federal law, Mr. Judge Margaret McKeown wrote for the dissenters. But the majority said Thursday Roommates.com different from the other pages, because it is not simply a passive transit information. Users of this site are required to select from the drop-down menus, if they want to live with “gay or just” men, with only “straight” men only in combination with “homosexual” or with men ” not of men “, the court said. “Rent, the answer to questions of discrimination is a prerequisite for the activity,” said Kozinski. Unique form, Roommate.com, is the name of the website Roommates. Com Timothy Algiers, a lawyer for the website, enterprises, launched a few years ago, the three brothers, Arizona, is considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court said it was the largest Roommates.com roommate Matching Service in the countryside and Whether the decision will have implications for similar sites, the roommate, especially for gays or members of a certain religious belief. “We are neutral,” said Alger. “We do not have a dog in the fight. A woman may find a man, a person can be directly search for a gay person or have no preference. “We do not force people to the state preferences. You can not state preferences.” The ruling sends the case to the Court to determine whether the Web site of the housing violation of the law. The Federal Constitution, the District Court in Los Angeles dismissed the complaint, introduced in the year 2003 by the Fair Housing advice of the San Fernando Valley and San Diego. Alger said that the companies have not changed their site in response to the color. Christopher Bran Cart, one of the lawyers of the Mass for housing, said the decision showed that “the sites are responsible for their own behavior and their own language, and if the behavior and speech is contrary to the law in the physical world, the fact that they him on the Internet is not to be immunized. Everyone, a Web site, screens and steers customers is based on the property can now personally responsible for legislation of the rights of citizens, he said. Kozinski, but emphasized that the trial would be limited impact. The Tribunal set aside a portion of comments Roommates.com desirable that, irrespective of the towns, was protected by the law, because they do not encourage them to legal acts. “The message to the operator of the site is clear: if you do not encourage the development of illegal content or your site, users need to provide illegal content, you will be immune,” Kozinski wrote. The court declared that Roommates.com differed markedly from Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and other search engines, because the roommate website designed its system to use criteria alleged illegal. ” The sites of meetings, users to answer similar questions are not required, said the ruling, because discrimination in the choice of a partner is not illegal. “It is perfectly legal discrimination along these lines, and so there can be no demand is based exclusively on the content of those questions,” says opinion of the majority. |