Authoritarians never run out of things they want to control and one of the biggest targets out there now is the web. As this article from Sunday’s New York Times indicates, “fair housing” zealots are angry because net sites like Craigslist occasionally have ads where someone (usually an apartment owner) indicates a preference for tenants with certain characteristics. The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal for anyone to discriminate in the sale or rental of housing and housing activists want something done about the fact that you could see an ad like this:”Ladies please rent from me…I prefer young college students or single females.”

Housing discrimination was never really much of a problem because for every person in the market who turns buyers or renters away, there are many others who are happy to have the business. But rather than try to help individuals who are inconvenienced by the preferences of others — to use a non-emotional term instead of the loaded “discrimination” — by guiding them toward those who don’t have a preference that works against them, the “fair housing” groups are on a mission to punish anyone who expresses a preference. Avoiding the pockets of discrimination that exist is easier and more consistent with a free society than litigation, but the housing groups find it a nifty way to increase their revenues since the very threat of a suit often causes landlords to settle and pay them a large chunk of money.

Instead of extending government control over the web to stamp out the non-problem of people expressing their preferences, why not use its greatest feature, namely the ability to link up buyer and seller speedily, to make transactions where both parties are satisfied?