Inviting participants in standard setting

Richard H Stern

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 1998)

Your daughter is having a birthday party. She wants to invite most of the kids in her class. But a few troublemakers exist. Billy, for example, always disrupts the party: knocking the birthday cake onto the floor, spilling ice cream over your Persian rug, stepping on the cat\'s tail.... Must you invite Billy, too? Not in the US: the First Amendment gives you a constitutional right to freedom of association. You don\'t have to invite troublemakers and other undesirables (as you subjectively define that term) into your home. As far as the law is concerned, your home is your castle. Billy\'s only recourse is to get his mother to phone you and complain, and you can be unresponsive. Billy has no possible legal claim against you for invidious discrimination. Now, suppose that you are setting a standard for a new bus or optical disk format. Does the principle that your home is your castle apply? That is problematic.