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Uber Raided By Dutch Authorities, Seen As 'Criminal Organization'
An anonymous reader writes: Uber offices in Amsterdam have been raided by Dutch authorities, as reported by several local media sources (Google translation of original in Dutch). This follows intimidatory deterrence practices earlier in The Netherlands, with Uber drivers being fined in the past months, and fresh allegations that the company would act as a "criminal organization" by offering a platform for taxi rides without license (read: without the authorities earning money from the practice). Time for tech companies to consider moving their European offices elsewhere?
Uber's lawyers must be incredibly busy. Proposed regulations in London would effectively end the company's service there, while the mayor of Rio de Janeiro said he would ban Uber's operations outright. They're receiving mixed messages from Australia — just a day after running afoul of regulations in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory is moving to legalize it.
It is currently not allowed to offer taxi services without a permit (and related stuff: insurance, markings on the car etc. depending on EU-country).
Work to change the law before you start the business.
There are lots of things you can't do without certification/permits/etc. If your plan is to fuck it all then you ARE working outside of the law. (car analogy: building your own car and not approving it - or in tax-insane Finland: paying car import tax on the burocrat-estimated worth of your self-built car).
Why the scare quotes around 'criminal organisation'? Uber's business model is to break the laws of every country they operate in and then hoping that the authorities are too timid to crack down on them. That by definition makes them a criminal organisation.
Oh, and nice bit of LOLbertarian bias in the summary.
"Time for tech companies to consider moving their European offices elsewhere?"
how about, Time for tech companies to stop thinking local laws don't fucking apply to them. Either obey the law, fight to get the laws changed or get the fuck out of the market. NO company should get to decide what laws they will and won't obey, that is a slippery slope that no one wants to be on.
What doesn't Uber understand about municipal codes? Yes, taxi service sucks, but just because I think I want to get to work faster doesn't mean I can break the speed limit. We have laws for a reason; if Uber wants to compete,it has to compete according to the LAW. If it wants to change the law, the ballot is where that should happen. After all, Uber is lining the pockets of politicians now, anyway - to let them help Uber break the law. It's absurd.
In the Netherlands we mostly have a mix of semi free market and government regulation.
The government sets the ground rules and free competition is possible within that platform.
Taxi drivers have to obey by many strict laws. Uber "taxis" do not.
The current position of the government is that Uber poses unfair competition as Uber users do not comply with the regulation required for Taxi drivers while essentialy offering the same services.
Technically, if Uber can make their drivers comply to the Taxi driver rules the app would be no problem.
Much of the advantage would be lost in the process though..
And it's a bit of a killer for innovation and keeps prices high.
Personally i like the sharing culture Uber promotes.
But i don't think the attitude towards Uber taxis will change anytime soon.
...in some countries. They're openly breaking the law. However - where regulations are faulty or problematic hampering the freedom of providing a valued service to the populace, this type of disruption is the only way to drive forward new growth markets and change 'the way' it is. Just because something is averse to a current corporate/government structure doesn't make it bad, although it is in many cases criminal.
I'd be curious about stats of Uber users - is it just a loud minority who aim their sites at the company? I'm guessing it is. Everyone I know who uses Uber loves it, and while I feel for the taxi drivers who pay into medallions or permits to drive cabs, markets....get.....disrupted......and this is a f'n good disruption.
Doesn't matter. A law is a law. Period.
Apropos of nothing, how do you feel about Rosa Parks not moving to the back of the bus?
The taxi medallion issue comes up frequently here on Slashdot, especially in support of Uber - except many countries dont have medallions or the costs associated with them. Here in the UK, to become a licensed taxi in my local area, it will cost you less than £3000 in fees every four years - wheres the excuse for Uber to be operating unlicensed in the same location?
that is a fallacious argument. You have incorrectly associated an individuals right to civil disobedience with the rights of a company. A company is not a citizen and as such it cannot commit civil disobedience. The world would be a very bad place if companies got to decide on laws, companies don't have the individual consequences associated with civil disobedience.
It's more than that, and you know it. Uber are choosing to have their drivers operate outside the local rules. Their drivers do not have insurance for passengers, and they do not have full background checks performed. So fuck yourself instead, moron.
Uber are more than welcome to compete, but like all the other companies, they have to adhere to the local laws. They have a system that works, they merely need to play by the rules.
Don't like the laws? The fuck off back to Murica, you won't be missed.
A Cato Institute study ...
You can probably stop there. The Cato Institute was founded by Charles Koch and while it proposes to be solely Libertarian it often leans Right. Any "analysis" they perform must be taken with a grain of salt. I'm not saying they're wrong, but what they publish cannot be detached from their public and, more importantly, private agendas.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
So you jump from one fallacious argument to another one to try and justify the behavior. Freedom of the press is not the same as civil disobedience which is not the same as a company ignoring laws.
Medallions are an outdated system that may have made sense at that time. However what we're talking about here (the examples of Ubers illegal practice in this article) isn't medallions. So no I, and I doubt many others, would even try and justify the medallion system but that doesn't mean that licensing on some level can't be justified on reasons beyond passenger safety.
Some examples of things that it might be justified to control via licensing (other than passenger safety):
Driver insurance
Passenger insurance
Pedestrian safety
Emissions
Traffic Control
Availability of transport for the disabled/elderly
Availability of transport to/from less popular locations
Quality of service (especially in high tourist areas)
I'm glad services like Uber exist as they bring more competition, but that doesn't mean that I agree with Uber's desire for an unregulated free for all.
How about these requirements that taxi companies have to adhere to.
- Availability of handicap accessible vehicles.
- Minimum number of cars on the road.
- Minimum wages for drivers.
- Vehicle inspections. I know safety may not be an issue now but give it a few years when Uber drivers wear out their current cars but can not afford a new one.
- The requirement to pick up anyone regardless of race, colour, gender, etc.
- A company responsible for the behavior of the driver. Uber is not as they say their review system will handle it. It may in the long run by there is no one to make drivers clean up their act.
Right now Uber is in a honeymoon state. Most of their drivers are happy and courteous. Wait about ten years when drivers have been jaded by low fares and bad customers. Then there will be even worse problems finding a cab. Today's regulations didn't just spring out of thin air. They were built up over years to deal with issues in the industry. Uber ignores those regulations and therefore their costs are lower.
For example, cleanliness of the ride, courtesy of the driver, and gypping the customer can be handled by the Uber feedback system.
It works until Uber gets too many complaints and they can not keep enough drivers on the road to service their customers. When making a choice between minor complaints and not enough drivers Uber will probably ignore the complaints.
I'm European, specifically a Finn. I've never had taxi miss a reserved time. Their responsibility if they do is in fact written into the law, and I have a right under customer protection legislation to demand recompense if they clearly accepted the order.
Of course, around here taxi companies are considered part of public transit infrastructure, and are also tasked with things like driving children in sparsely populated rural areas to schools, ferrying elderly and disabled and so on. They're expensive, but you get the quality you pay for.
I suspect the reason why you have these complaints is because there isn't enough regulation on taxi services in your country.
jcr, you're a regular poster as am I, you're a level headed guy, but as an ex taxi driver I have to say you have your head up your arse on this one.
IMO Uber are the worst kind of rent seeker, the kind that prey on people who are desperate enough to sign up as a driver. Uber's over-inflated "market value" has to collapse because at some point the "market" will become bored with the legal battles over 'freedom' and want a real ROI. I don't have any pity for the investors, just the honest drivers who go in with a reliable car and no money, and come out a year or two later with an unroadworthy clunker, and still no money.
If you think I'm exaggerating, the oldest taxi I ever drove was 5yrs off the showroom floor, it had 1.1 million kilometers on the clock, only the body work was original, even the seat sliders had been replaced at least once. Unless the Uber driver is also a mechanic, it would be cheaper for them to buy a 'runout-model' used car once a year. Most taxi's are a one man / one car operations, they lease/rent it to another regular driver or two to keep it on the road 24X7, and buying a 'new' car once every year or so is how they handle the entropy problem. They don't earn a lot of money, the 'plates' (medallion in the US) is the taxi owner's superannuation. The "hidden costs" are the reason Uber refuses to play by the rules, driving a cab doesn't pay enough to satisfy them so they insert themselves in the middle, they even "generously" offer to pay the drivers fines while at the same time offloading all the real costs onto the poor sap.
Also they are not a 'taxi' company as they would like you to think, in most places they are a traditional 'limo' company using sub-contractors, fuck me they were around when I was driving in the 80's, nobody had heard of the internet but we did have phones. Limos can't be flagged down, nor can they use taxi rank infrastructure. Using sub-contractors and ordering it on a computer is hardly revolutionary, so it's not the regulations that are broken, it's Uber's business model. For good reasons it was illegal before the internet was born, "on a computer" doesn't change that.
Again, I'm genuinely surprised you have swallowed Uber's 'hipster' marketing.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.