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It's kinda wild to see people here dismissing this. The US equivalent to the ACCC is the FTC is absolutely toothless and ineffective. The ACCC has teeth and ha
by cletus 4y ago
It's kinda wild to see people here dismissing this.
The US equivalent to the ACCC is the FTC is absolutely toothless and ineffective. The ACCC has teeth and has had real impact on many industries. For example, ISPs were essentially forbidden from saying their plans were "unlimited" unless they actually were unlimited (which they never were so there were no "unlimited" plans, which is fine because they were all fake anyway).
This particular complaint is about something relatively minor: misleading messaging about cancellation fees. Like do you think that didn't happen in the US? Where's the FTC action and settlement on that?
As for the fare estimation part, it's hard to say what the impact of that was.
The only US equivalent to this is a class action lawsuit where the lawyers get paid (a lot), several lead plaintiffs will get paid something and everyone else will get a check for $2.35 in 8 years after printing out a form and mailing it in.
Even in the really egregious cases like the Equifax hack, the cash settlement part was capped at $31 million [1].
[1]: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/equifax-data-breach-consumer-guide https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/equifax-data-brea...
- nikanj 4y agoThey might have teeth, but they didn’t use them here. Uber’s 2021 revenues were around 6000 million USD, and the fine was 21 million USD. ”The FTC is even more useless” isn’t really a good argument, and I don’t disagree - the whole Uber/AirBnB business model is built on the realization that you can just blatantly ignore regulators, and pay the miniscule fines out of petty cash
- cletus 4y agoIn what world do you think the ACCC, which only really has jurisdiction over Australia, should fine Uber some large portion of their worldwide revenue of $6B for misleading messaging about cancellations?
- praestigiare 4y agoA world in which an Australian regulatory agency should protect Australian consumers by levying a fine which makes it financially untenable to operate in Australia with these deceptive practices.
- Handytinge 4y agoLike... 10% of their turnover in fines? Which is what they did.
- PretzelPirate 4y agoGDPR fines are based on worldwide revenue, so it’s not outrageous to think that other policies/organizations would do the same. If they don’t, fines aren’t going to be effective motivators.
- jcranberry 4y agoThe EU has a big enough market that access outweighs the cost. If Malta tried to fine Uber a percentage of its global revenue they'd pack up shop and leave immediately. Australia is about one fifteenth the size of Europe in population.
- nikanj 4y agoI think you've just perfectly explained the problem: "If we punish them hard enough that they care, they might leave". You can't do credible enforcement, if your primary goal is ensuring the company continues to grace you with their presence
- jcranberry 4y agoIt's not about a particular company it's about global/international companies in general. Plus imposing a global revenue fine for this kind of issue would be absurd. It only needs to be enough for their bottom line to look better by complying rather than making the change.
- afarrell 4y agoSpecifically, the bottom line of the business unit within the company which earns revenue from the business.
- cletus 4y agoThis is roughly equivalent to saying we should put people in jail for 5 years for speeding because for some people a $50 fine just isn't that much. Punishments need to be proportionate. Executing people for stealing hub caps may well reduce the incidence of that but that doesn't make it OK. Misleading cancellation messaging just isn't that big of a deal. I really wish people would focus on the severity of what happened rather than just saying "it's not enough" just because they seemingly hate Uber. People's personal dislike of a company or person is not a basis for determining a punishment.
- tremon 4y agoBecause otherwise, multinational companies will use their global profits to bankroll illegal activities within any nation's borders, and will keep on doing so until the nation relents.
- dahfizz 4y agoThe real question is whether Uber made >$26m using the deceptive cancellation messages in Australia. The goal of fines isn't to bankrupt companies, but to change behavior. If you can make a specific behavior unprofitable, the fine is successful.
- pluc 4y agoIf you feel disillusioned at the FTC I invite you to take a look at Canada's CRTC.
- shalmanese 4y ago> (which they never were so there were no "unlimited" plans, which is fine because they were all fake anyway). Huh? It's easy to find advertised unlimited plans in Australia. This page lists 75 of them: https://www.comparebroadband.com.au/internet-plans/unlimited-nbn-plans/ https://www.comparebroadband.com.au/internet-plans/unlimited...
- cletus 4y agoYes, because these plans are actually unlimited. There are no quotas. There are no soft caps. There are no hard caps. There is no throttling of your traffic beyond a certain threshold. Why? Because the ACCC outlawed any plan calling itself "unlimited" if it had any of these. That's the point. 10+ years ago, actual "unlimited" plans were really uncommon because ISPs included some or all of these on all their plans. Compare this to any of the cable Internet "unlimited" plans and you'll find a world of diffference.