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It is completely legal for businesses to deny service as long as it's not a protected class. I, as a freelancer, refuse to work with certain "difficult" clien

• necovek 5y ago
  As a freelancer, you are usually not working with "the public". A bunch of professions require special licensing to be able to deal with the public (supermarkets included, but even one-man professions like public notaries in some countries), and while there is no similar legislation for internet "places", we can easily establish de-facto public services (which most social networks are). So, if you've got an open shop (retail space), can you forbid someone from entering for "any reason"? Eg. "I dislike your hairstyle" is a reason.
  • rmah 5y ago
    In the US anyway, as the parent said, yes you can deny service for any or no reason except for specific protected classes (e.g. sex, race, religion, etc.). You can, for example, deny service to anyone wearing red. Or anyone who is not an adult (or not a child). You can deny service to anyone named Jeeves. There are, of course, edge cases. For example, a shopping mall is a private space but not in and of itself a retailer. IIRC, they are held to a higher standard than retailers and must have a real reason to deny entry. And then there are the cases of using one reason to deny service when really you want to deny service to a protected class. Those are common lawsuit material.
    • necovek 5y ago
      Thanks! If that's the case, we probably need to re-think through those policies if we think that they should not apply equally to "virtual" spaces (like Google/Youtube accounts).