Illegal Discrimination is determined by the jurisdiction you are in. Belgium will have different laws than than the US
Laws typically PROTECT vulnerable populations. Young people might be correlated with poor and uninformed, and there by entitled to protections. Likewise, Seniors may also correlate with underemployed and mentally impaired, and there by entitled to protections.
Note also that there is an important difference between the two scenarios:
1) 2 IDENTICAL products, but one is FREE
2) 2 SIMILAR products, but one exchanges convenience for cost
In the first example (similar to your example), one is DEFINITELY better (the free one), and CAN be targeted to people- because it is DEFINITELY better
In the first example (similar to my credit card), neither is DEFINITELY better than the other - it is a little more complex! And we have a higher burden showing that it is OK to offer JUST one to a protected class.
Maybe somebody can clarify this for me. It seems that there is a difference in American and European laws about discrimination, where U.S. has a concept of protected groups (i.e. they explicitly enumerate who is not to be discriminated), while EU has laws based on equality of the groups (or more generally, humans).
It seems to me that the American system is more antagonistic, in the sense it really prefers some groups (or classes) to another. And this causes more issues (and more resentment). Am I understanding this right?
This is naive. There are an infinite number of ways to legally discriminate. Not all discrimination is bad. When you buy a five star product over a one star product you are discriminating.
Discriminations harms extend well beyond those which are recognised legally. The law itself is very often a tool for further oppression, and should be considered on that basis.
There are two elements to that question: the legal and the moral.
Legally the premise is shaky as it's a short walk from "use a specific payment method" (a financial instrument, a device, a service, a company) to what are protected classes: age, race, national origin, religious beliefs, gender, disability, pregnancy, and veteran status in the United States.[1] As such, strictly as a business decision there's a considerable risk involved that such practices would be found to be de facto discimination against one or more protected classes.
(Keep in mind that there are religions which consider interest on money to be against their beliefs, which would then transfer to use of revolving credit instruments. I've no idea whether this has been tested in US courts.)
On a moral basis, even that which is not strictly illegal may be against principles of greater justice, and gatekeeping access to goods or services can easily work against those with limited means (unable to buy the latest mobile smartphone or desktop/laptop computer), unabile to maintain broadband comms access, owning a working but end-of-lifed device (for Android as little as 2--3 years, somewhat better for Apple), living in regions without high-speed broadband (most of the US), excluded from access to credit by low credit scores, or forced by circumstances to accept massive invasions of privacy or exposure to manipulation (propaganda, advertising, targeted manipulation) simply to participate minimally in the everyday business of life.
Note that remote-commerce can be a force for inclusion and against oppression. The Sears Roebuck Catalogue was the subject of recent commentary on that point, see for example:
The major operative factor to me seems to be whether a technology constrains or expands opportunities. Reducing payment options quite clearly constrains them.
The difference is whether the whole society pays (via taxes or higher overall prices at the till because of the higher cost of doing business) or the person needing the extra service does. In the countries without anti-discrimination laws, those in discriminated groups (like people with disabilities) tend to have a much lower quality of life—they cannot get hired, even if they get hired they earn much less, they cannot access services, even if they can they must pay much more. In the societies that have these sorts of regulations, the whole society bears the extra cost, so everyone's individual burden is lower and manageable.
My point still stands—unless the society via regulations forces businesses to accommodate groups like people with disabilities, those groups will be excluded from society, as they are in my old country.
I feel quite ambiguous about these discriminating techniques. For example, it is okay for us to give females / older people lower insurance rate because that's what the statistics says. Likewise, it's likely that people who search for privacy-enhancing software are more likely to engage in "subversive" activity. So it's hard for me to determine which kind of discrimination is justified and which not.
There's rules about discrimination for specific reasons: you can't discriminate based on age, race, gender, etc. "Which credit card" you use isn't one of those categories, so it's legal to discriminate based on it. (And is often done, though not to this extent; many places, for example, will accept Visa and Mastercard but not Discover.)
Isn't that what the status quo in the US is? AFAIK outside of discrimination in a few specific industries (e.g. insurance rates), there is very little discrimination protection for customers.
It can also mean more-expensive prices to wealthier people, or lower-quality scam products for people too poor to complain (poverty can significantly decrease one's energy and available free time) once they get them.
It's not discrimination, it's price discrimination.
The range of coffee, and the range of prices, that Starbucks has is often used as an example of price discrimination. You take your basic product, add a cheap to provide option, and charge more. This allows rich people to give you more money.
It's certainly worth talking about and fixing--the difference between segmentation and discrimination. Like in the HUD case mentioned in the article, discriminating based on age, gender, race, etc. are actually illegal. Not every industry is as regulated nor are they all at risk of it because of this.
To me, there's not a question of "should we make this better?" because we're talking about basic rights: the right to not be discriminated in the pursuit of a roof over your head or a job to pay you a living wage (housing and employment). IMO, a very different question when you advertise anything outside of those basic rights. Plenty of grey area to talk about there.
This is not an absolute truth, and many countries would disagree with your interpretation of discrimination.
For instance in France regarding B2B sales:
"Constitue également une discrimination toute distinction opérée entre les personnes morales sur le fondement de l'origine, du sexe, de la situation de famille, de la grossesse, de l'apparence physique, de la particulière vulnérabilité résultant de la situation économique, apparente ou connue de son auteur, du patronyme, du lieu de résidence, de l'état de santé, de la perte d'autonomie, du handicap, des caractéristiques génétiques, des mœurs, de l'orientation sexuelle, de l'identité de genre, de l'âge, des opinions politiques, des activités syndicales, de la capacité à s'exprimer dans une langue autre que le français, de l'appartenance ou de la non-appartenance, vraie ou supposée, à une ethnie, une Nation, une prétendue race ou une religion déterminée des membres ou de certains membres de ces personnes morales."
This clearly states that you cannot refuse to sell a product or to a company on political grounds, just like you can't refuse to sell to a Jewish association because they are Jewish, or to a Italian company because you don't trust Italians.
It totally is discrimination. A friend of mine in an EU country had the experience where a client’s payment to his business rang all the alerts and was delayed by his bank for a month just because it came from an African country. Both totally legitimate businesses doing no shady stuff whatsoever.
Try to explain to your employees how their salaries are delayed because your bank suspects you’re terrorists or something.
This and some other experiences turned me to someone who believes that the freedom to transact is an inalienable right, and that it should be taken out of the hands of governments and centralised institutions as much as possible.
Discrimination is far more nuanced than it first appears.
We accept that younger drivers pay more for car insurance. And that disabled people pay more for their health insurance. And that the government (in the UK) has a special business grants scheme for ethnic minority entrepreneurs.
Obviously discrimination depends on context. If a car insurance firm had a special policy for ethnic minorities, people would (rightly) be outraged. But in the context of a government intervention, based on the evidenced disadvantages that ethnic minorities face, discrimination is accepted.
thats what I'm saying. many people jump to 'discrimination' when its merely a discrepancy. discrepancies exist everywhere for entirely benign reasons. furthermore, believing its discrimination for its own sake (like age discrimination) would contradict the belief that companies optimize for profit (which I don't think is a bad thing) since there no absolute causality there.
I'm an American, with experience in the US
Illegal Discrimination is determined by the jurisdiction you are in. Belgium will have different laws than than the US
Laws typically PROTECT vulnerable populations. Young people might be correlated with poor and uninformed, and there by entitled to protections. Likewise, Seniors may also correlate with underemployed and mentally impaired, and there by entitled to protections.
Note also that there is an important difference between the two scenarios:
1) 2 IDENTICAL products, but one is FREE 2) 2 SIMILAR products, but one exchanges convenience for cost
In the first example (similar to your example), one is DEFINITELY better (the free one), and CAN be targeted to people- because it is DEFINITELY better
In the first example (similar to my credit card), neither is DEFINITELY better than the other - it is a little more complex! And we have a higher burden showing that it is OK to offer JUST one to a protected class.
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