The website can be held liable for violations of the federal Fair Housing Act, a federal judge in California has ruled. Roommates.com crossed the legal line into potential discrimination by requiring the disclosure of race, gender and sexual preference and allowing other would-be renters to search for roommates using these categories.

Roommates.com LLC contends it will continue business as usual and won’t stop collecting such personal data. It has vowed to appeal and to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

But fair housing groups, which first brought the case more than five years ago, are hoping to put a halt to the practice much sooner than that. Activists will make their case next month for a court injunction.

However, the website contends that Congress, when it passed the Fair Housing Act 40 years ago, never intended it to apply to the selection of roommates.

But the courts, so far, have found otherwise.

A gay male who registered on the site, for example, would not receive notices of new apartment opportunities from roommates who indicated a preference for straight males and straight females or lesbians, the Ninth District Court of Appeals found in an earlier ruling. The court ruled the website’s search function was "designed to steer users based on discriminatory criteria," the court’s chief judge wrote in his majority opinion, Inman News reports.

Stay tuned.