We are all committed to doing everything we can to help eliminate all forms of unlawful bias, discrimination, and intolerance from our platform. We want to promote a culture within the Search Scuba community—dive shops and diverse just considering whether to use our platform—that goes above and beyond mere compliance. To that end, all of us, Search Scuba employees, dive shops and divers alike, agree to read and act in accordance with the following policy to strengthen our community and realize our mission of ensuring that everyone can belong, and feels welcome, anywhere.
- INCLUSION – We welcome divers of all backgrounds. Joining Search Scuba, as a dive shop or diver, means becoming part of a community of inclusion. Bias, prejudice, racism, and hatred have no place on our platform or in our community. While dive shops are required to follow all applicable laws that prohibit discrimination based on such factors as race, religion, national origin, and others listed below, we commit to do more than comply with the minimum requirements established by law.
- RESPECT – We are respectful of each other in our interactions and encounters. Search Scuba appreciates that local laws and cultural norms vary around the world and expects dive shops and divers to abide by local laws, and to engage with each other respectfully, even when views may not reflect their beliefs or upbringings. Search Scuba’s members bring to our community an incredible diversity of background experiences, beliefs, and customs. By connecting people from different backgrounds, Search Scuba fosters greater understanding and appreciation for the common characteristics shared by all human beings and undermines prejudice rooted in misconception, misinformation, or misunderstanding.
SPECIFIC GUIDANCE FOR DIVE SHOPS IN THE UNITED STATES
As a general matter, we will familiarize ourselves with all applicable federal, state, and local laws that apply to recreation diving. Dive shops should contact Search Scuba customer service if they have any questions about their obligations to comply with this Search Scuba Nondiscrimination Policy. Guided by these principles, our U.S. dive shop community will follow these rules when considering potential divers and dive shopping divers:
RACE, COLOR, ETHNICITY, NATIONAL ORIGIN, RELIGION, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY, OR MARITAL STATUS
Search Scuba dive shops MAY NOT
Decline a diver based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.
Impose any different terms or conditions based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.
Post any listing or make any statement that discourages or indicates a preference for or against any diver because of race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.
GENDER IDENTITY
Search Scuba does not assign a gender identity to our users. We consider the gender of an individual to be what they identify and/or designate on their user profile.
Search Scuba dive shops MAY NOT
Decline to book a diver based on gender.
Impose any different terms or conditions based on gender unless the dive shop shares living spaces with the diver.
AGE AND FAMILIAL STATUS
Search Scuba dive shops MAY NOT:
Impose any different terms or conditions or decline a reservation based on the diver’s age or familial status, where prohibited by law.
Search Scuba dive shops MAY:
Provide factually accurate information about their listing’s features (or lack of them) that could make the listing unsafe or unsuitable for divers of a certain age or families with children or infants.
PERSONAL PREFERENCES
Nothing in this policy prevents a dive shop from turning down a diver on the basis of a characteristic that is not protected under the civil rights laws or closely associated with a protected class.
When divers are turned down – Dive shops should keep in mind that no one likes to be turned down. While a dive shop may have, and articulate, lawful and legitimate reasons for turning down a potential diver, it may cause that member of our community to feel unwelcome or excluded. Dive shops should make every effort to be welcoming to divers of all backgrounds. Dive shops who demonstrate a pattern of rejecting divers from a protected class (even while articulating legitimate reasons) undermine the strength of our community by making potential divers feel unwelcome, and Search Scuba may suspend dive shops who have demonstrated such a pattern from the Search Scuba platform.
SPECIFIC GUIDANCE FOR DIVE SHOPS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES
Outside of the United States, some countries or communities may allow or even require people to make booking distinctions based on, for example, marital status, national origin, gender or sexual orientation, in violation of our general nondiscrimination philosophy. In these cases, we do not require dive shops to violate local laws, nor to accept divers that could expose the dive shops to a real and demonstrable risk of arrest, or physical harm to their persons or property. Dive shops who operate in such areas should set out any such restriction on their ability to dive shop particular divers in their listing, so that prospective divers are aware of the issue and Search Scuba can confirm the necessity for such an action. In communicating any such restrictions, we expect dive shops to use clear, factual, non-derogatory terms. Slurs and insults have no place on our platform or in our community.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVE SHOP DOES NOT COMPLY WITH OUR POLICIES IN THIS AREA?
If a particular listing contains language contrary to this nondiscrimination policy, the dive shop will be asked to remove the language and affirm his or her understanding and intent to comply with this policy and its underlying principles. Search Scuba may also, in its discretion, take steps up to and including suspending the dive shop from the Search Scuba platform.
If the dive shop improperly rejects divers on the basis of protected class, or uses language demonstrating that his or her actions were motivated by factors prohibited by this policy, Search Scuba will take steps to enforce this policy, up to and including suspending the dive shop from the platform.