3 ms·

>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 Dis

by jaclaz 7y ago

>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.) Sure, but one thing is: "Sorry, I cannot accept Discover, do you happen to have another means of payment?" and another one is: "Sorry, I cannot accept Discover, and since you presented one of those cards to me once, then you are prevented for the rest of your life to enter these premises again".

r00fus 7y ago
The relief for that would be for the customer to talk to everyone and tell them how bad the vendor is, and go to another vendor who offers the same service. In this case, Google is effectively a monopoly/2Big2Fail in advertising. So that remedy is not available or is impractical. So the issue is not necessarily the behaviors (while reprehensible) but the size of the company.
- tfha 7y ago
  Yeah the real issue is the choice. If there were 5 or 10 reasonable alternatives, this kind of thing wouldn't bother me at all. But if the options are "obey Google or fail", suddenly it's a big problem.
mayank 7y ago
Unfortunately both your scenarios are perfectly legal. Credit cards are not a protected class.
- alanfranz 7y ago
  Imagine if that very thing happened at a grocery store. You're in a small town, no alternative, and you've got no driving licence. Would you like to starve because of no reason? Btw, I'm not saying it's illegal. I'm saying it SHOULD be illegal.
  - pb7 7y ago
    It should be illegal as soon as the District Attorney decides to prosecute every instance of criminal fraud.
weinzierl 7y ago
From Google's point of view it's more like: "Sorry, I cannot accept this bill, and since you presented counterfeit money to me once, then you are prevented for the rest of your life to enter these premises again". I'm not saying this is right, but I think it's the more apt analogy.
- alanfranz 7y ago
  At least there's a reason AND a felony. If a customer steals at my restaurant, that's a good reason to deny him service forever. But I'll probably contact police about it as well.
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    Well, but then, even in our not-so-perfect world, there are still some nuances based on the actual (criminal) act. The customer would be arrested by the police, then he/she would be subject to a trial and IF actually found guilty would be sentenced to - say - six months of jail. If he/she had actually killed someone, then he/she would probably get thirty years or a life sentence. But here we are still talking about someone who (BTW presumably in good faith) presented the "wrong" piece of paper (a fake bill that he maybe got as change from another restaurant) at the counter of your restaurant to pay the bill, and that was (again presumably) ready to give you another "good" banknote to pay for the service. I don't think (actually hope) the restaurant owner would call the police for this.
- kadoban 7y ago
  Except it's in no sense of the word "counterfeit", right? So the analogy falls apart pretty hard for me. It's more like that old Taco Bell $2 bill story.
  - pb7 7y ago
    It may not be counterfeit but if Google has a wealth of data indicating that this usage pattern results in fraud then it might as well be the digital form of counterfeit.

by jaclaz 7y ago

r00fus 7y ago

The relief for that would be for the customer to talk to everyone and tell them how bad the vendor is, and go to another vendor who offers the same service. In this case, Google is effectively a monopoly/2Big2Fail in advertising. So that remedy is not available or is impractical. So the issue is not necessarily the behaviors (while reprehensible) but the size of the company.

tfha 7y ago
Yeah the real issue is the choice. If there were 5 or 10 reasonable alternatives, this kind of thing wouldn't bother me at all. But if the options are "obey Google or fail", suddenly it's a big problem.

mayank 7y ago

Unfortunately both your scenarios are perfectly legal. Credit cards are not a protected class.

alanfranz 7y ago
Imagine if that very thing happened at a grocery store. You're in a small town, no alternative, and you've got no driving licence. Would you like to starve because of no reason? Btw, I'm not saying it's illegal. I'm saying it SHOULD be illegal.
- pb7 7y ago
  It should be illegal as soon as the District Attorney decides to prosecute every instance of criminal fraud.

weinzierl 7y ago

From Google's point of view it's more like: "Sorry, I cannot accept this bill, and since you presented counterfeit money to me once, then you are prevented for the rest of your life to enter these premises again". I'm not saying this is right, but I think it's the more apt analogy.

alanfranz 7y ago
At least there's a reason AND a felony. If a customer steals at my restaurant, that's a good reason to deny him service forever. But I'll probably contact police about it as well.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  Well, but then, even in our not-so-perfect world, there are still some nuances based on the actual (criminal) act. The customer would be arrested by the police, then he/she would be subject to a trial and IF actually found guilty would be sentenced to - say - six months of jail. If he/she had actually killed someone, then he/she would probably get thirty years or a life sentence. But here we are still talking about someone who (BTW presumably in good faith) presented the "wrong" piece of paper (a fake bill that he maybe got as change from another restaurant) at the counter of your restaurant to pay the bill, and that was (again presumably) ready to give you another "good" banknote to pay for the service. I don't think (actually hope) the restaurant owner would call the police for this.
kadoban 7y ago
Except it's in no sense of the word "counterfeit", right? So the analogy falls apart pretty hard for me. It's more like that old Taco Bell $2 bill story.
- pb7 7y ago
  It may not be counterfeit but if Google has a wealth of data indicating that this usage pattern results in fraud then it might as well be the digital form of counterfeit.