Legality of a Domain Name.

[satrah]

Hi everyone,
I have a customer who wishes to setup a recruiting website and i want to check to see if a domain can be deemed illegal by law on discrimination grounds if it is targeted at a specific group of people, e.g race, religion or sex.
For example www.jobsfor(whatever).com.au
Would love everyones input on this one.
Thanks in advance!
Josh

 

[exsedo]

Hi,
I would say that this could be a problem.
There is always some group, somewhere, who would put up a challenge.
Whether they would win or not would not be the point from my perspective, it would be all the hassle, time and money spent defending the idea.

This is not legal advice, just my opinion.

 

[mrjohn]

I'm not certain that asking a highly internationalized community for federal-level legal advice is the right idea, but . . .

IIRC, Australia has very rigid discrimination laws. I'm not exactly a legal scholar, let alone an expert of Australian federal law. But, my recollection is that Australia not only prohibits negative discrimination (anti-whoever) but affirmative discrimination (pro-whatever).

 

[BNZ]

I'd agree with the other posters. I think anything pertaining to race, sex, religion, etc. is just asking for trouble. Even if it's not technically "illegal", it's probably not the best idea.

If, however, the "whatever" in www.jobsfor(whatever).com.au was, for example: moms, seniors, bakers, mechanics, doctors, etc... then you should be all right and would still target a specific group. Maybe consider something along these lines instead.

 

[Ms Domainer]

*

I would venture to say that field-specific ones would be okay, such as jobs for

lawyers

truck drivers

servers

doctors

etc.​

because these groups filter according to training and/or experience in a field and do not discriminate according to gender, race, ethic group, or sexual orientation.

"Jobs for moms" might be dicey, because it could discriminate against someone, say a single man, who might be equally qualified for the job listed on the "Moms" site.

I'm not a lawyer, and I have never been to Australia, so it might be a good idea to look into your local laws before making a financial commitment to a domain.

*

 

[advertisingurls]

yes i doubt id put jobs for white people or jobs for hispanics etc.. id look into this

 

[nightshad]

Here in the States, discrimination laws are strict, and any group who feels slighted will initiate legal action alleging discrimination, whether or not their position as actual merit. The legal costs alone would subsume any revenues earned by the domain.

With that said, I would agree with a prior poster, and say that "jobsfor[profession]" would be acceptable, i.e. doctors, lawyers, techies, etc. When you start getting into gender, race, sexual preference, religion, ethnicity issues, then you open yourself to massive legal exposure, and that simply isn't worth the hassle, even if you meant no harm at all.