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I hate it when governments do this, and they seem to do it a lot. The socially optimal price is the marginal cost of providing the service. In this case, the ma

I hate it when governments do this, and they seem to do it a lot. The socially optimal price is the marginal cost of providing the service. In this case, the marginal cost is essentially 0 so the search should be free. They're leaving welfare gains on the table by setting such a ridiculous price.

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
Unfortunately, this is one of the most effective methods of discouraging wanton scraping. I’m not sure about the laws in Canada, but aren’t these convictions public domain? Presumably someone could just scrape that and build a free API?
- brandon272 7y ago
  > Unfortunately, this is one of the most effective methods of discouraging wanton scraping. Maybe they could require you to add (and verify) a credit card and then not charge it for fewer than 30 queries a month. Of course, it's a solution that brings other problems, but it's one way of using payment systems to provide the service and keep it free for everyone but the scrapers.
- emsy 7y ago
  Ask for name and date of birth. Voila, no scraping.
  - distances 7y ago
    With the current state of PII leaks, I'm not so sure.
- throwaway40324 7y ago
  Hmm.. hold my, no wait.. take my beer.
- LorenPechtel 7y ago
  A simple, pretty much unscrapable system: App on your phone that you use to take a picture of the license. The system returns the current status.
  - Mo3 7y ago
    That is far from unscrapable. Could probably be done within hours with the Android emulator.
    - 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
      And I’m sure it would be openALPR on the backend, which would gladly parse a dynamically generated “picture” of a license.
    - LorenPechtel 7y ago
      If you had a picture of the license you could certainly scrape it--but then you're doing it legitimately anyway, no need to scrape. Without a picture of the license it's not going to return anything but an error.
- lacker 7y ago
  They could have just added a captcha.
pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
Nobody isn't going to trust someone that they are already trusting their car with. I bet the service is barely used. The cost of maintaining the server, and paying the salaries of multiple people to maintain 24/7 support is not essentially 0. Wake up. Maybe 500 people use it per year, with yearly costs of $200,000+, should cost at least $400 per query.
wutbrodo 7y ago
I'd imagine that the socially optimal price is _below_ marginal cost, since it's improving compliance with a law that (I hope) is uncontroversially utility-increasing
C1sc0cat 7y ago
Probably don't want tabloid newspapers just checking everyones status regularly

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago

Unfortunately, this is one of the most effective methods of discouraging wanton scraping. I’m not sure about the laws in Canada, but aren’t these convictions public domain? Presumably someone could just scrape that and build a free API?

brandon272 7y ago
> Unfortunately, this is one of the most effective methods of discouraging wanton scraping. Maybe they could require you to add (and verify) a credit card and then not charge it for fewer than 30 queries a month. Of course, it's a solution that brings other problems, but it's one way of using payment systems to provide the service and keep it free for everyone but the scrapers.
emsy 7y ago
Ask for name and date of birth. Voila, no scraping.
- distances 7y ago
  With the current state of PII leaks, I'm not so sure.
throwaway40324 7y ago
Hmm.. hold my, no wait.. take my beer.
LorenPechtel 7y ago
A simple, pretty much unscrapable system: App on your phone that you use to take a picture of the license. The system returns the current status.
- Mo3 7y ago
  That is far from unscrapable. Could probably be done within hours with the Android emulator.
  - 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
    And I’m sure it would be openALPR on the backend, which would gladly parse a dynamically generated “picture” of a license.
  - LorenPechtel 7y ago
    If you had a picture of the license you could certainly scrape it--but then you're doing it legitimately anyway, no need to scrape. Without a picture of the license it's not going to return anything but an error.
lacker 7y ago
They could have just added a captcha.

pg_is_a_butt 7y ago

Nobody isn't going to trust someone that they are already trusting their car with. I bet the service is barely used. The cost of maintaining the server, and paying the salaries of multiple people to maintain 24/7 support is not essentially 0. Wake up. Maybe 500 people use it per year, with yearly costs of $200,000+, should cost at least $400 per query.

wutbrodo 7y ago

I'd imagine that the socially optimal price is _below_ marginal cost, since it's improving compliance with a law that (I hope) is uncontroversially utility-increasing

C1sc0cat 7y ago

Probably don't want tabloid newspapers just checking everyones status regularly