Ask HN: Can you legally deny selling software to someone on ethical grounds? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Can you legally deny selling software to someone on ethical grounds?

Our company sells software as a service that helps people organize events.

We have been growing quickly over the past couple of years and have recently run into an ethical question: should we (and can we legally) decline to sell our software to organizations that we think are morally wrong?

For example, there are several people on our team that are extremely pro-choice. We had a pro-life group sign up recently and these employees are threatening to quit if we accept their money.

Is it even legal to refuse their business (it could be considered religious discrimination).

I think we're all in agreement that if the KKK signed up and wanted to use our software to organize clan rallies we would not be willing to foster hate speech.

The question has also been raised of if we deny this client where we would draw the line in the future. If a certain politician wanted to use it to organize rallies in the next election would that be Ok even if we vehemently opposed their political beliefs?

How have other software companies dealt with this in the past?

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> For example, there are several people on our team that are extremely pro-choice. We had a pro-life group sign up recently and these employees are threatening to quit if we accept their money.

kernel.org and gnu.org will gladly give those pro-life people an OS, mozilla.org a browser. Free of charge, and all.

microsoft.com will lavish software upon those pro-lifers, much of it for a fee.

Safeway will sell a loaf of bread and bottle of milk to a pro-lifer.

But some primadonnas don't want their employing software organization to sell them event organizing software?

They really are in the wrong business. Because if you make software for event organizing, half the customers will be groups that half of you don't agree with. That's because events are often political or religious or whatever.

You're not going to have much of an income from organizing bake sale fund raisers for school trips or baby showers --- and what if some on your team are against even that sort of thing?

Let them go and replace them with "pro-money" and "pro-business" team members.

Exactly. And the reality is if you don't take their money, a competitor will.

I don't agree with "if I don't perpetrate this harm, someone else will, so it's okay" because that pattern can be used to justify any harm. If I don't perpetrate this harm, and someone else does, the moral culpability rests with them and not me; and that makes all the difference.

I'm saying that doing business with people who oppose abortion isn't the perpetration of harm. We as a society do not economically ostracize people who hold a pro-life position. There is no need for some random software developers of some groupware to be doing that.

We don't? Sure we do. We boycott all sorts of things. Economics and market relationships are one of the most potent tools people in our capitalist society have for effecting change.

Since when does taking a stand for what you believe in make you a primadonna?

You can call them "primadonnas" if you like, and maybe they are! If it's just one or two people, and they aren't irreplaceable, and they're being noisy, then that's exactly what they are.

But if it's the bulk of the team, or it's key team members, then being noisy about something --- an ethical boundary, a workplace demand, whatever --- it isn't "primadonnery". It's the marketplace at work. In our industry, workers often have a lot more power than they understand, let alone wield. Getting angry about it won't change that.

There are all sorts of organizations we would refuse to do business at our firm. I can't see how it's any different in this scenario.

What's next? Are you going to investigate your clients, their families, their gender, their money sources? Are you going to open a money laundering investigation on each bank deposit you get?

Unless it is illegal, you should not care. I think it is very unprofessional to deny service to someone because he has extreme opinions. You become just as worse as him; if not more.

It is not your right to dictate what society should do. If the government allowed them to organize the event, let them roll. Remember, if you are pro-choice, you should help get the opinion of everyone be heard.

I imagine what's next is that the next time a pro-life advocacy organization tries to sign up, they will again say "no".

Your company should have legal counsel who can answer questions like this.

Religious discrimination applies to individuals in hiring or school admissions situations. Companies can generally reserve the right to not do business with a customer for any reason, but various legal precedents might apply, so it depends.

We've turned down clients for ethical reasons before. It's not that weird. People do it all the time; they just don't make a lot of noise about it. If the Aryan Nation tried to sign up with us, we'd probably tweet a bit about it. But otherwise we'd just declare ourselves incompatible and get on with our lives and let whoever they are get on with theirs.

So, the assessment you need to make is:

a. How important to your company is the bloc of employees with this client conflict?

b. How much of a dealbreaker to that bloc is the conflict?

c. How much of a dealbreaker to your company is the other side of the conflict?

Pro-choice/pro-life isn't my particular red line (I was raised and still sort of consider myself Catholic, though I'm not pro-life --- but there are certainly pro-life organizations I'd refuse to work with). But there are other red lines, and they do come up, and your principles are usually more important than your customer pipeline, and it's usually just not a big deal to say "no" to people.

Ask your lawyer --- not a message board! --- about the legality of refusing to work with pro-life advocacy organizations, but I'd happily bet money that you're just fine on this. The bigger issue is how you want to handle your relationship with your team.

You might come up with a compromise, if you don't want to publicly take a stand that will attract attention that could harm the company (and that is a possibility); you could, for instance, make a countervailing donation (at some multiple of revenue) to NARAL.

I think it's one of the reasons boiler-plate terms-of-service documents have so many restrictions how you may use a service. For example my ISP doesn't allow me to post any hate speech related content while using their internet service. Unlikely to impossible they check all users, but gives them the loophole to deny service to anybody indidually, possibly using a small unrelated technicality as stated reason, should they find out.

Random ShowHN of a website that's not even a month old https://exifshot.com/terms "We have the right (though not the obligation) to, in Our sole discretion (i) [...] or (ii) terminate or deny access to and use of the Website to any individual or entity for any reason, in Our sole discretion. We will have no obligation to provide a refund of any amounts previously paid."

Our SaaS discussed the same. We had political parties we didn't agree with, government agencies we didn't agree with (spying, tracking), even individuals. So far none made it past the trial period, they effectively never really used our service. We would deny service, we're small (and pride?) enough to stand for our ideals.

I agree with your assessment you might get sued when it comes to religious discrimination.

On your point about using loopholes to deny service. I'm writing this under a more anonymous account too because apparently what I'm about to say is a radical idea and people don't usually get it.

I was charged for a crime once! I spent a month in jail! Me! I did. Yeah. They never managed to directly accuse me of anything and in the end I took a plea bargain to get out of jail (they had already locked me in jail for a month for literally nothing, I would put nothing past them). The most valuable lesson I learned from this is that we are all already guilty of something according to the way the law is written. They only call that in when they need to get you. But be under no delusions that you are not already got. Constitutional justice is pure fantasy in the United States.

If "the bad guys" write rules that make everyone already guilty I have to wonder at what point "the good guys" become guilty themselves. I'm saying the "it's not my responsibility" excuse doesn't cut it anymore.

Everyone telling you to fire half your team has the luxury of never having to look that employee in the eye and telling them you're letting them go because the customer is always right and the employee never is.

Unless your product is so well-built and scalable that it could withstand the next 3 months without any dev support whatsoever, it wouldn't surprise me if firing half your workforce would be tantamount to shutting your doors over this. Plus, it's not like the remaining half will be inspired to work twice as hard, and it's not like "as long as I'm getting paid" devs are beating down the door to replace the ones threatening to leave at half the price. Recruiting talent is really hard, even when you're popular. Most of this board doesn't get or appreciate that.

Here's what I'd do. Unlike that guy who declined to make a wedding cake, I'd say, ok guys, but I make wedding cakes my own way, and I don't customize, so the top piece will be very traditional, and if that doesn't match with your special day, that's not my problem and you're free to take your business elsewhere.

Announce to your employees that you're going to do something similar for the pro-life group. Maybe in the sales calls, say you're going to watermark "right to choose" on printouts or something, and that's an area you won't customize. That oughtta shut up the malcontents and perhaps inspire them to work cheaper for you.

And then when the would-be customer gets all butthurt about your horrible sales skills, no one will care, because you're still willing to provide your service to them, just not the way they want, which is not newsworthy.

Let them quit. Your company will be better without such extreme zealots

Or it won't, and you'll fail, but at least you'll have stood by your own principle of disregarding the political beliefs of your team in the service of your customers, and maybe that's what'll make you happiest!

Most people start by assuming you can trade with anyone willing to trade with you. Without more, you're not responsible for their use or misuse of the purchase.

I have a hard time seeing SaaS services operating to make your team complicit in the activities of the purchaser. The "aS" in SaaS doesn't usually require you to do something that can be mistaken for endorsement.

As others have said, these are principles that can end up costing your team lots of money. You all might agree to be a business that helps pro-choice people organize. But it's tiring to be a place that just deals with those of untainted virtue. If you all agree it's that kind of place, fine, but puritanism doesn't scale outside of the small social class that shares your convictions.

You probably want to talk to a lawyer in your place about specifics. I think California does prohibit some political affiliation discrimination, so you might have to sell to Rs and Ds, in that example. And if you think something might be religious discrimination, that's a gut feeling I wouldn't ignore without legal advice.

> Is it even legal to refuse their business (it could be considered religious discrimination).

Didn't the supreme court rule for the baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple?

Kinda. What SCOTUS actually ruled is that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission violated the Free Exercise Clause, and so essentially threw the case out. The opinion very clearly states that this exception to the anti-discrimination laws are not going to set precedent for future exceptions and that the bar in the future will be even higher due to various changes in the law from the time of the incident.

One article I quickly dug up that seems to give it a fair treatment: https://qz.com/1296174/scotus-masterpiece-bakery-case-the-su...

I’m getting older and somewhat dismayed at how people want to punish others for their viewpoint. I am told I must be more tolerant by people who want to sack, ban and punish others for having a different point of view.

I would not support your colleagues stance unless your clients are breaking the law. The logical outcome of supporting every interest group would be chaos.

I can't offer much advice, except this: you should treat the two questions separately:

1. Who do you want to deny business to. 2. Who you can, legally, deny business to.

A lawyer can answer #2, but only yourselves can answer #1. Be careful, as too much internal debate may split the company along ideological lines - in searching for where to draw the line, you're likely to run into issues on which you (strongly) disagree (reminds me of http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ ).

It might be best if the boss draws a line somewhere that won't make too many people angry (and reserves the right to decide any gray areas on a case by case basis), and quickly ends the discussion. Anything else is, in my opinion, asking for an ideological war.

Here in America, I believe you can refuse them, as l long as they aren't a protected class. But should you?absolutely not. Even if they were the kkk. You are talking about Free Speech. And while that is between us and government, I believe Free Speech is the cornerstone to democracy, and each and everyone of us should strive to support Free Speech. Even if that means supporting speech we don't like. You may not agree with what someone is saying, but you sound right for their right to say it. In this day people seem to be fighting against the right of free speech, especially speech they don't like.

This reminds me of all social media kicking Alex Jones from their platforms. It is a nice ideology to allow free speech but it simply does not happen.

You better believe I fight against speech I don’t like. Look up the paradox of tolerance to see where your argument falls apart.

If you give in on this, what next will they ask? They are trying to partially take control of the business by making threats. That is never acceptable. Fire them for cause, or at least make them quit. (financially better if they quit, but they might illegally cause harm unless you escort them out immediately)

Also, you don't discriminate if you are serious about running a business. You accept all legal business that is profitable.

(Sorry for the throwaway account; my normal HN account is tied to my identity and I don't want this linked to my employer.)

No problem, makes sense.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information"

Unless you are a federally and state utilities commission regulated utility service like an electrical grid operator, natural gas last-mile operator, or dialtone POTS phone service, you are not obligated to accept any particular customer.

It is not religious discrimination at all, and political discrimination is not illegal, so there isn't a legal issue with any of the scenarios you mentioned.

That's wrong. Political discrimination is illegal in certain states like California.

If someone's views on abortion are strongly dictated by their religious beliefs then I think it could be argued that it is religious discrimination. At the very least I could see it going to trial.

I would keep politics out of your business.

You'll offend 50% of your potential client base and 50% of your employees (potentially) if you bring politics in to the picture.

I wouldn't allow employees to dictate business decisions like that, and would look at quietly letting go the ones who are threatening to quit.

Also look at what information your employees have access to, I would minimize discussions and employee access to who your signups are and minimize their access to how they are using the app. Make client privacy a priority.

37signals cat.jpg story: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3078-trust-is-fragile

And security as well. Make sure employees with access to the database are trustworthy and aren't going to take extreme measures against clients they don't agree with.

Avoiding groups that are promoting hate and criminal activities is understandable.

Now is a good time to improve your ToS to outline reasons why you might suspend or terminate a users account.

And would definitely consult an attorney as to how to go about informing clients you don't want their business if you decide to go that route.

Good luck, congrats on the growth, update us how this shakes out.

I agree. Keep politics out of your business. Doing otherwise is a potential hornet’s nest. If they are doing illegal business then sure, deny service on those grounds and possibly report to authorities, if applicable.

In politics you’re not going to please everyone, even those on your side, they’ll potentially ask for more “activism”. So, if it were me, I’d keep politics and business sepatate.

Unfortunately you don't always have the choice of keeping politics out. Activists that discover you are doing business with a company or group they disapprove of can publicize this fact, organize boycotts against you, harass your other customers, bully your employees and do everything in their power to make you go out of business if you don't cut ties with the customer which they disapprove.

The best solution for that is to still keep politics out and ignore the complainers. They only have any power at all because companies and organisations listen to them. The more people ignore angry Twitter mobs, the quicker said Twitter mobs become ineffective and people realise screaming at anything that offends them won't get them their way.

Agreed with this. Was involved in big platform company who handled it this way and it went well. A good way to do it is email the customer and say 1. You disagree with them 2. You respect their rights and will allow them to legally use your service 3. Tell employeesb and customer that you'll donate the money to Planned Parenthood, etc.

This sounds like the worst of both worlds. Vehemently pro-choice employees are unlikely to be placated, and pro-lifers are going to boycott the company anyway.

It could be quite bad for morale to keep their business. You'll probably have a group that quit, plus the ones that are left but still would be unsettled by you valuing a bit of $ over principles.

That said, I don't think the Supreme Court ruling covers your case (you don't have a religious objection), so you might want to get council.

In what way do you think you have an obligation to provide the service? Don't business with don't like. But WTF KKK? details and we'll, um. help/

Is the natural follow-up to this question: What about Google?

> I think we're all in agreement that if the KKK signed up and wanted to use our software to organize clan rallies we would not be willing to foster hate speech.

I think you might actually have a problem with that one, too, unless you have a policy in place that defines hate speech and that it's not allowed on your platform. Even the KKK has freedom of speech, and there isn't an actual law about "hate speech,"[2] and the ACLU routinely goes to bat for the KKK and Nazis to protect their freedom of speech, as well as yours and mine, even though we might not agree with everyone's speech[1].

> The United States does not have hate speech laws, since American courts have repeatedly ruled that laws criminalizing hate speech violate the guarantee to freedom of speech contained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[8] There are several categories of speech that are not protected by the First Amendment, such as speech that calls for imminent violence upon a person or group. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that hate speech is not one of these categories.[92][not in citation given] Court rulings often must be reexamined to ensure the U.S. Constitution is being upheld in the ruling on whether or not the words count as a violation[2]

There were actually 2 cases about bakers refusing to sell their services to people based on sexual orientation, with 2 different outcomes because the reasons were different. In one case, they had a stated policy against derogatory language/images

> In the first case, the baker refused service to a customer who wanted her to bake a cake with anti-gay Bible verses on it. The customer argued that he was discriminated against because of his religious beliefs. But the court ruled that this was not discrimination because the baker had a consistent policy of refusing to create cakes that used derogatory language or imagery.[3a]

> In the second case, a baker refused to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, saying that it violated his religious beliefs. The court held the baker liable, saying that his reason was just a pretext for discriminating against gays.[3b]

[1] https://www.aclu.org/other/freedom-expression-aclu-position-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech#United_States

[3] https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/the-right-to-refuse-servi...

Wow, ok, there is so much misinformation in this thread...

Background: I specialize in partisan political tech consulting - primarily hired by start ups in the political tech space and VC's that are either evaluating a company in this market or have already invested and need a "subject matter expert" to make sure no one messes up too badly. This is a problem that I talk to firms and starts up about a lot (like three+ times this week).

> Is it legal not accept their business/shut down their account? Yes. As long as they are not a protected class AND the reason you are doing so is outlined in your terms of service. Even if they are a protected class there are some exceptions but leave that to your lawyers.

> By denying this group, are you locking out 50% of your market? Absolutely not. While in theory saying "my company only sells to Democrats" could be a bad idea if your product had market fit outside the political market, saying "we do not sell to Republicans" will potentially grow your market share in politics. Political organizations frequently do not spend money with vendors that also sell to their opponents.

If you are targeting the political market it is often important (if not required) to 'pick a side' at the beginning. There has never been a successful nonpartisan politically focused tech company in the US, ever. NationBuilder for example has been a complete financial failure while other companies like Polis are nonpartisan but their primary market fit is nonpolitical.

> What about Microsoft, Firefox, Stripe, or Eventbrite? They will sell to anyone! Yes and no. Stripe turned off service for the hate site Gab.com. Additionally there is a major difference between a platform (Microsoft Word) and a vital tool for winning in the political space (like a voterfile), especially in the already fairly saturated US market - internationally it's a little different, but that's really just because there are less options.

Are you a platform or a tool? Companies like Hustle have tried really hard to fall into that "platform" category but between their clients seeing them as a tool and saturation of their niche (p2p SMS services) they decided to not sell to Republicans. If they had not made this choice their Dem clients would have left.

> What should you do / how have other companies dealt with this? Assuming you are not a strictly politically focused company (which I'm guessing you're not, otherwise this would have come up earlier) the best thing to do is work with your team to come up with a terms of service that reflects your values.

A good example of this is saying "we do not allow clients to use our tools to promote violence, hate speech, or fake news through this system." I can't tell you the number of times I've gotten on the phone with some client's lawyer and they want to know what we actually define as hate speech, to which my response usually is "if you have to ask..."

Eventbrite serves both Dems and Republicans, they even have seperate staff to work with each party! That being said, NGP VAN only works with Dems and i360 only works with Republicans. Which one are you more similar to?

> Is it bad that your employees have opinions on how what they build should be use? Happens to everyone and should be celebrated, not shut down. https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/28/18116447/google-employee... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/22/tim-cook-... https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/30/17179100/facebook-memo-le...

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