
Uber Fined $7.6M in California - chicode
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/14/uber-fined-7-6-million-in-california/
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TeMPOraL
How did they manage to do that? With the app and their big data and all the
things, it should be literally as simple as performing two SQL queries and
piping them to the compliance department...

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HiLo
This is going to be wildly unpopular but 7.6 billion would be a number worth
mentioning. (Although I also feel VW should be banned from the US, no
negotiations.)

What kind of message do you send by only fining them a tiny portion of what
they were only able to make by breaking your laws? I'm 24 and I know my peers
already justify their potentially unethical business decisions by citing Uber.
Really all I've taken away from this is to not really worry about state laws.

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bobby_9x
"Really all I've taken away from this is to not really worry about state
laws."

If you want to change an entire industry, then yes. Sometimes it's better to
ask for forgiveness than permission.

Uber has opened up the ride-sharing market to many more people. You don't need
a $1,000,000 medallion to make money as a driver any longer.

Since the monopoly has been forcibly broken, it also created competition,
which in turn lowers the price for the consumer.

It's a win-win. They are only breaking laws protecting unethical business
practices of the taxi cab companies.

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geofft
But that sort of approach is effectively permission for an equally-well-funded
unethical company that wants to disrupt an industry full of ethical business
practices.

That's one of the biggest reasons that laws have publicly disclosed
punishments associated with breaking them: they dissuade _other people_ from
breaking the law. If the penalty is low, and not because the people of
California said that Uber should not be penalized (which presumably they can
easily do), that communicates to everyone else who might want to break similar
laws that the penalty will be equally low for them.

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HiLo
EXACTLY.

