> since all the ratings are from other "users".

Posting racially-discriminating for-rent ads gets both the landlord and the newspaper in trouble. "We're just a platform" doesn't work as an excuse.

It's also not hard to detect statistically - with enough data you can see that a given driver is giving worse ratings to protected class members compared to similar drivers at the same time and place.

That requires Uber to know the class of its riders.

And the account holder won’t account for all riders (and could be different than the account holder entirely).

Riders can self-select into a protected class, maybe?

This will of course lead to a situation where some hooligans opt into a protected class just to mess with the system. Even still, on large number of rides it will even out.

But everyone is a member of a protected class. Some people might not be members of historically disadvantaged protected classes, but the relevant laws don't discriminate in that way. ('Men' is a protected class. 'Women' is a protected class. And 'Other' is a protected class, too.)

There's no such thing as protected classes in dating though, so I don't think it's a useful parallel. You're allowed to not date, say, people of other races if that's how your tastes run, but you're not allowed to discriminate against providing business services to people by race.

Is showing your profile to other people a "business service"? Because IIRC Tinder does some ML to show you people they predict you'll like (based on what other people with preferences similar to you liked) - and that would probably result in showing certain profiles to others less often.

This is an interesting question that's above my pay grade. I would love to hear an answer from a knowledgeable lawyer.