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Uber banned in Spain
- cryptoz 12y ago> In a statement on Monday, Uber said it would "continue to offer UberPop", despite the threat of a fine of up to €100,00 for itself, and one of up to €40,000 for drivers. Classic Uber.
- radmuzom 12y agoTrue action against scums like Uber will not happen through governments, but some association of locals destroying valuable property or worst case physically harming some Uber executives. While I am dead against such behaviour in general, I would not protest if it happens against Uber. For those of you think this is too far-fetched, in India unions have murdered management in the past, even in the last few years. Again, while I wish that this never happens against anybody, sometimes that is the only course of action against crony capitalism.
- boona 12y agoWhere is a 'report a user' button when you need one?
- dang 12y agoFlagging comments reports a user. We review all the comments that are heavily flagged along with the accounts that posted them. If you want to give us additional information about abuse, please email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look into it. Heaven help us if we ever need a button for this.
- throwaway420 12y agoI'm genuinely curious as to how Uber is an example of crony capitalism. If anything, aren't the established interests fighting to keep the old taxi medallion system in place an actual example of crony capitalism?
- radmuzom 12y agoHuh? Playing by the rules - however bad the rules are - is NOT crony capitalism. Bribing officials to not follow them is (or one among many aspects of crony capitalism).
- pgeorgi 12y agoUber has a warchest in the billions. Local taxi companies sometimes have ~50% of their value invested in their 5 cars. The "old taxi medallion system" is a prime example of Uber's sneaky PR: Just because the system might be broken in San Francisco or New York, or whatever is the poster-evil Uber claims to fight, doesn't mean that a) it's like that everywhere, b) Uber is any better.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y agoIt's all just regular capitalism.
- dang 12y ago(This comment was rightly killed by user flags, but I'm going to unkill it for a while so people who want to can read it as an example [1].) There's relevant news in some of these Uber stories, but there's also a growing problem in these threads: outrage escalation in which people vie with one another to say ever worse things about an object of hatred. This comment exemplifies this while taking it to a new low. This is not driven by newfound passion for taxi regulation. It is an internet variant of mob behavior. It triggers an opposing mob of people who like the thing, hating the people who hate the thing. Each side gives the other reason to feel aggrieved. We're past the stage where people throw twigs onto the fire and are about at the point where they're dragging in furniture. When a topic mechanically induces users into violating Hacker News' values in this way, we penalize that topic. It's a poor solution, but the alternative is worse, and civil and substantive discussion is largely impossible in such threads anyway. Obviously, we'd rather not penalize the Uber stories. To avoid this, we need everyone to take pains to edit this reflexive outrage out of each comment you post, regardless of the position it takes. 1. If the comment has been flagkilled again, a summary is that it relishes the idea of physical violence against Uber executives. To read the original, turn "showdead" on in your profile.
- radmuzom 12y agoThe 2nd paragraph is just stating a fact - look up Indian news if you do not believe it. The 1st paragraph was definitely intended to provoke - however, don't be surprised if it actually happens. I have talked to numerous "auto" (tuk-tuk) drivers in India who have echoed similar feelings to me. What I say here, or whether it is a new low, does not matter to the people whose livelihoods are getting destroyed due to criminals like Uber (if you break the law, however good your intent might be, you are a criminal).
- davidw 12y agoIf you guys don't want the mobs, one step would be to get rid of the outrage articles. Sitting at #1 right now is an article about the CIA torture stuff. It's off topic (politics, mainstream news), but getting all kinds of votes and discussion.
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- mparramon 12y agoThis is already happening in Spain, I guess you'll be happy about it: http://www.elmundo.es/cataluna/2014/10/21/544633e8268e3ed87e8b4577.html http://www.elmundo.es/cataluna/2014/10/21/544633e8268e3ed87e...
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y agoUber doesn't fear a fine for its drivers, since the drivers take the hit and not the company.
- atburrow 12y agoNobody is forcing the drivers to drive, though.
- hazz 12y agoAlthough according to the article it is risking a €100,000 fine on top of €40,000 fine given to the driver. That could rack up pretty quickly if it were on a per-violation basis.
- 650REDHAIR 12y agoUber has paid fines on behalf of the drivers in the past in US cities as long as they were obeying all other laws (seat belts, max occupancy, etc).
- aikah 12y agoTo be fair,I'd say that Uber doesn't even have (real) offices in most countries where it operates,therefore making it almost impossible to enforce any court decision against it.It's a bit like Airbnb. Unless one makes the app illegal or block Uber website(which I am against),there is not much the justice can do. On the other hand,just like with Airbnb,for the hosts and drivers,it's another story... I would also add that,if a country really want to kick out these "sharing economy" services,they need to fine the service provider as well as the client.Not that I agree with it,just that,as long as there are clients willing to pay for it,with little risk,there will be hosts and drivers willing to take the risk to be fined.
- pmorici 12y ago"there is not much the justice can do." It would be pretty east to shut down. Just give a few cops some phones have them start hailing Ubers and handing out tickets with heavy fines to drivers. Rinse and repeat until word gets around. Uber might still be operating but unless they are going to pay the tickets they will soon be out of drivers.
- at-fates-hands 12y agoI was thinking the same thing. As a driver, (and considering Uber's history and questionable business practices) no way I'd want to get stuck with a 40K euro fine to pay on my own.
- colmvp 12y agoThat's pretty much what happened in Ottawa.
- smackfu 12y agoThat's assuming that the penalties are enforceable upon the drivers. I wouldn't be surprised to see the laws written exactly the opposite, to protect the drivers from bad actions of the employer.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y agoI wonder if a little Internet censorship might be a possible means of enforcement. Ask the court to order mobile ISPs to block Uber.
- zipwitch 12y agoUber is so cute, outlaws pretending to be a corporation. How long before the executives are jailed or shot?
- therobot24 12y agono such thing as bad publicity i suppose
- kszx 12y agoThe explanation "not legal because we haven't allowed it" will sound odd to people from common law countries like US and UK (where, conversely, it's closer to "It's legal because no law states that it's not"). But it's practice in civil law countries like Spain, Germany etc. I know I've simplified the difference a lot, probably oversimplified it, but I often think of this broad distinction when I see cases like this one.
- Xylakant 12y agoAt least in Germany the general rule is "as long as there's no law forbidding it, it's permitted." The problem is that there's a regulation that explicitly puts restrictions on what requirements you need to fulfill to transport other people for money - one of them being "needs authorization". And UberPop fails to meet these requirements.
- kszx 12y agoThere's a Wikipedia article on this: 'The jocular saying is that, in England, "everything which is not forbidden is allowed", while, in Germany, the opposite applies, so "everything which is not allowed is forbidden". ... The saying about the Germans is at least partially true. ...' http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_which_is_not_forbidden_is_allowed http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_which_is_not_forbi...
- pgeorgi 12y agoAnd the example isn't about allowed or forbidden, it's if a legal construction holds up in court that implies a further meaning than what it literally in the books. Something that you'll have mixed results with, no matter the jurisdiction. Just that, broadly speaking, absent a clear rule, civil law courts try to derive the intent of the closest law, while common law courts create new law through their decision.
- legulere 12y agoI think this mostly is about what the state is allowed to do, as the state actions are often seen as an infringement to basic rights.
- melvinmt 12y agoThe thing about EU countries [1] that most American companies continually underestimate is: the primary focus of the legal system is to protect citizens/consumers, not companies, for better or worse. You can't escape this as a company by simply ignoring the rules or throwing money into lobbying in Brussels, whether you're Uber, Airbnb, Google or Microsoft. [1] Especially the ones with a civil law system which is all of them except the UK.
- pepelepoo 12y agoRe. your footnote, Malta and Cyprus also practise Common Law.
- philh 12y ago> the primary focus of the legal system is to protect citizens/consumers, not companies ... You can't escape this [by lobbying] This is somewhat incongruous with the Spanish court talking about "unfair competition"; and with "the move follows a complaint by the Madrid Taxi Association."
- krammer 12y agoMadrid Taxi Association is not a company... To help with the discussion, I dont think "politics love people more than in US". Just that people's "lobbies" have more "media power" than in the USA. And its a really bad timing for uber to come to our countries: anything that can sound like more unemployment its going to be rejected by government, even if it's false. Its a false dilemma, but taxi drivers are saying that government is destroying 5K jobs just in Madrid and giving them to the yankees.
- qwerta 12y agoPerhaps there is marked for more distributed approach.
- throwaway1592 12y agoIt is starting to feel like Uber is becoming "Aereo" and not in a good way. Eventually you need to yield and follow laws and work through the process. Uber has lots of good potential but my feeling is that in the end Uber will be dead and existing taxis services will just have a Mobile App.