Discrimination outside protected characteristics?
<p>I am an avid community user for a paid software. The users buy the software, but not access to support. The company makes a strong use of the friendly community in their product advertisements.</p>
<p>The community support (Discord, and a forum) comes with their own terms of service. To date, I've witnessed several people be banned from community services without disclosed reason, with no violation of the terms of use.</p>
<p>After the ban, they are ignored when they ask for explanation, and &quot;third-party&quot; users such as myself are refused any details under the ground it is private - even when the user in question is asking me to speak for them as they cannot reach the company directly.</p>
<p>The users I've seen have been helpful, had good reputation, have had no warnings, and are suitably confused by the actions taken against them. In the latest incident, the user had not been active for a month, not posting for longer, yet was banned for &quot;reports from users that your behaviour and speech was inappropriate&quot;.</p>
<p>When they tried to work out why, they were repeatedly told &quot;the decision is final&quot;, and when asking for what messages specifically they were banned for, they were refused it. Is it not necessary to describe what was inappropriate?</p>
<p>I've inspected discrimination law, but the grounds does not seem to be under protected characteristics. So, is there any illegal action being taken here? Is it legal to target and carry out a restriction on random users like this, without supplying adequate reason?</p>
<p>The company is based in France, are there any overseeing regulatory bodies, or legislation that is in violation?</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/united-states" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" rel="tag">united-states</a></p>
<p>Under US law, the situation would be clear: The company  can decline to permit anyone to use its site, even without a provision in the TOS saying so, unless it has specifically contracted to provide service via the site. The company may change the TOS at any time, unless it has a specific contract to permit access under the old TOS, and the revised TOS will apply to all use of the site subsequent to the change, even if the old TOS did not specifically authorize changes.</p>
<p>No US anti-discrimination or consumer protection law that I know of would  apply in this fact pattern.</p>
<p>I have not found any relevant French law either, but my French skills are decades old and I do not trust my search to have found such a law if it exists, which is why I am replying for the US.</p>

discrimination france online harassment