Uber Suspends Australian Transport Inspector Accounts To Block Stings

jaa101 writes In Australia Uber is reportedly suspending the accounts used by government transport inspectors conducting sting operations. The article suggests that a new handset, credit card and email account are all needed to get a new, unblocked account. If inspectors can only issue one or two fines before they're blocked then the sting operations will cost more than the fines. Presumably the Uber app can block based on IMEI, SIM and/or phone number.

Comments

Extradition?

[aaronb1138]

I am usually extremely against extradition to foreign countries for minor legal infractions, but can Australia go ahead and grab all of the Uber corporate HQ employees under whatever equivalent to RICO, obstruction, and similar organized crime laws they have.

We know Uber is an illegal taxi service in many (most?) jurisdictions in which they operate. I hope that these actions are of a scale and deliberateness to go ahead and start hitting them with the bigger crime laws since most governments have been hesitant to attack the head.

Re:Extradition?

[Harlequin80]

While this may be the case in some parts of the world it is not true here in Australia.

Uber is operating a taxi service but not operating under the laws that govern taxis. In Australia taxis are considered a part of the wider public transport system and are factored into planning around things like trains and bus services. As a result taxi drivers have a number of restrictions on them. Possibly the most important of those is they cannot refuse a fare. It doesn't matter that your house is miles away from any other chance of a fare they have to take you.

The net impact of this is that taxis have to take on jobs which are nominally a net loss. This is then made up by other routes being more profitable. Uber comes in and says we don't need to participate in this, we will just cherry pick the profitable routes. As a result the taxis that are required to never say no start to lose money and a key part of your cities public transport infrastructure starts to collapse.

So Uber's cost structure attempts to avoid the cost of the taxi plate, and to avoid the greater good requirements placed on taxi firms. The net effect is not positive.

Re:Is Uber a big government straw man?

[quantaman]

Because that's how you get legislation.

I have no idea why Uber would be so blatant/stupid - any legal advice or even common sense would have told them that this kind of behavior gets a lot of attention very fast - and not the good, loving kind of attention either.

Unless they are really trying to get governments to make it hard for smaller "ridesharing" companies to compete. Burning the bridge after you cross? Does that make any sense?

Well they are worth $40 billion so they're evidently doing something right.

I think they're willing to ride out the fines, even if the fines are big enough so they're losing money they've got the bank to do it for a while. And in the meantime people are reading about them in the papers, drivers are coming to work for them, and people are installing their app.

If and when Australia updates its laws all those competitors who obeyed the law will step in to find that Uber has a huge first mover advantage. Unless Australia and other districts find a way to actually shut them down this is going to be one of those cases where crime does pay.

Re:The most beautiful thing ever!

[bickerdyke]

Somehow I'd still like to call BS on those stories.

There shouldn't be anything easier than catching and putting into jail a rapist driver if you have the (electronic) paper trail of who got into whose car, where was the ride booked, where was the destination. Aren't they automatically checking the GPS logs that the driver ist taking you from A to B on the shortest route? And I'd bet that Uper is checking meticulously that you're not cutting into Ubers share by booking only the first half of your ride by Uber and pay the driver cash for the rest of the trip.

So if you live in a country where rape is not normal and the police actively is trying to catch rapists, Uber should be safer than being anywhere else without GPS tracking. Sounds like cab company FUD to me.