The service did not do the matching, it only provides listings which users can search. And as I understand it, Roommate.com does not do matching either.

Hmmmm. Ok. Maybe I misread something. I was under the impression that Roommates themselves provided a first level match from using required information that users could then refine with further searches.

I did catch the further clarifying reasonings of the court regarding an entity’s indirect contributions by *requiring* said information as a term of doing business with them.

As for going to court, that’s what this ruling determined: that it can go to trial.

Yes. I’d agree with this. That the ruling made a decision that such entities were not immune from prosecution.

I’m unsure, however, if Roommates will actually be taken to court unless their is plausible evidence that there was discrimination. That’s why I spent so much time mentioning “solutions” Roomates could take to avoid that regarding Roommates no longer *requiring* such info, but making it voluntary.

I also think caution needs to be used in not conflating the free association rights of individual citizens with the business practices of a business entity.

Some clarification.

I’ve not used Roommate.com but I am familiar with a similar product. The service did not do the matching, it only provides listings which users can search. And as I understand it, Roommate.com does not do matching either.

They allowed customers to use that field as a search variable such that Joe Renter could search for listing only of gay men, only of straight women, or various combinations, as well as other variables such as price, size, location, etc. It would then provide those members that fit the search criteria.

The court, if I understand correctly, found the discrimination to be occuring by the end user but objected to the rental service facilitating the customer’s discrimination.

If a potential roommate eliminated choices because they have children, the court can’t control that. But it can blame Roommate.com for making it easy.

As for going to court, that’s what this ruling determined: that it can go to trial.

These councils clearly have no respect for freedom of association: “They claimed that allowing member to search and filter by such things as sex or orientation was facilitated them in discrimination.”

So what? We have a perfect right to discriminate in choosing roommates!

“With the voluntary information, the users would be doing the searching and screening.”

I’m not even sure this would be necessary. I can foresee one of two things regarding this:

1. Roomate continues to provide the same type of matching they did previously, only the matching will be done via a combination of allowed required info (e.g., perhaps, income, location, number of bedrooms; i.e. non personal attributes) in combination with the voluntary info supplied by users… OR

2. Roomate does a first level match for those who sign up with then, then users do a second level search within those matchs to refine for personal attribution preferences.

I would exect the first scenario to be the more likely one.

Let me try to clarify this a bit more.

The court wasn’t ruling that Roomates *was* being discriminatory.

Basically, the outcome of the court decision was a ruling that entities such as Roommates could be held liable, that is such sites would loose their immunity.

This opens the door for when such entities are being discriminatory in practice they can now be prosecuted, whereas prior to the ruling the could not.

Roommate: “because it requires users to provide information about gender, sexual orientation and whether they have children, and then uses the information to screen people for matches.”

Roommate was doing the screening and matching.

With the voluntary information, the users would be doing the searching and screening.

I’m not saying that Roommate in practice was being discriminatory. But that I understand how the court reached its decision.

I wouldn’t expect this to actually go to trial unless there was plausible cause that discrimination was occuring.

But I don’t think the court was looking at this as just a single entities practices, but the bigger picture.

In practice, if the information is made voluntary, I still don’t see that impacting the function of the service much on the side of users.

That justs makes my point.

Roommate wasn’t refusing to do business with anyone because of race, sex, etc. It was simply providing a particular service: matching people with a roommate of the type they want.

The Court’s ruling ignores this distinction.

The court ruling has no effect on volunteered information. The renter or the person looking for a roommate can still state their preferences. Roommate can just no longer be required to provide the information in order to do business with Roommate.

All Roommate has to do is make the information optional and still provide the user search options for that or any other “personal attribute” that’s voluntarily provided.

The Court clearly ignored the reason for asking these questions in the first place: the preferences of the renter.

I wonder.. if asking if their gay, unconstitutional or disciminatory, then asking the questions above, the same?