
French court fines Uber, execs for illegal taxi service - flexie
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-ubertech-court-idUSKCN0YV1DQ
======
remh
Execs, Managers, etc. should be sent to jail when they break the law
deliberately. Fines are not enough as if the benefit of breaking the law is
higher than the fine, then there is no incentive to stop.

We've seen that happening with all the big corp cartels that just provision
money from those benefits to pay the eventual fine.

The fact that the French Law here may be bad or wrong is not relevant to this
point.

~~~
Dylan16807
Fines are okay, just make them larger.

Jail for managers should be reserved for situations where people have serious
damages. It would be appropriate for certain bank malfeasance, but not for
violating taxi regulations.

Maybe a token amount for non-serious damages, like a month. Shame should be
effective here.

~~~
Retric
This is a little past simple violation of a regulation. This is acting like
your above the law which is generally dealt with much more harshly.

~~~
stickfigure
Everyone driving 15mph above the speed limit is "acting like they are above
the law".

~~~
Retric
Driving 15mph above the speed limit _and then ignoring the cop pulling you
over_ is acting like you are above the law and will not end well.

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drakonandor
> The court said in its ruling that UberPOP had caused a "durable disruption"
> of the transport sector, provoking violent protests by taxi drivers that had
> disturbed public order.

Fine Uber because taxi drivers are violent? makes sense.

~~~
philjohn
No, they were fined because they decided to enter a tightly regulated market
without gaining the necessary permits and permission, and following the
requisite rules.

Not saying it's right that the industry is regulated, and it's certainly not
right that the French Taxi drivers resorted to violence, but if you want to
operate in a country, you have to abide by their rules, it's called the cost
of doing business.

Now, there's nothing to stop them lobbying for change of course.

~~~
Shivetya
fined because they tried to play in a bought and paid for market when there
was nothing for sale. Industries went from being regulated to being protected.
I don't know the numbers in France but Occupational Licensing in the United
States stymies competition and worse puts a disproportionate burden on the
poor when trying to enter such a licensed field. You can actually spend more
money and time gaining a license to cut hair than be an EMT in some states.

There can be no justice when laws are not just.

~~~
Keats
Well the court just decided that the law was just.

Unless US tech companies with billions of funding are above it, they still
have to respect it.

Uber is still allowed in France, only UberPop is forbidden like in a lot of
european countries and rightly so.

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rvanniekerk
Personal anecdote, of course, but Uber saved my ass while I was in Europe
(specifically Paris and Madrid).

Immediately upon arriving via train to Paris from London we were harassed by a
number of sketchy looking individuals claiming to be "taxi" drivers, of course
not speaking French I really had no way to validate the claims, they all
became hostile towards me the minute I took my camera out.

I resorted to opening the Uber app and lo and behold had a validated ride
within minutes. The service was exceptional and they even spoke English
relatively well.

Fast forward 24 hours, I thought I had booked a flight out of the airport in
the city about 20 mins drive, turns out my flight was actually out of the
airport much further north of Paris.

I rushed to get an Uber and my driver was extremely friendly and not only
brought me to the exact bus station I needed to be at, also showed me exactly
which ticket to purchase and where to wait.

Never in my life have I received close to that level of service from a taxi
driver.

A couple weeks later in Madrid we found ourselves pretty far away from our
flat, not well equipped for the weather and ready to head back. We saw several
advertisements for the local taxi services "ride sharing" app and decided to
give it a shot. After jumping between a couple starbucks to find reasonable
wifi, we ordered a taxi and proceeded to wait 20+ minutes for a driver to
finally show up in the app as our pickup, however, the actual taxi was nowhere
to be found. No text / call / messages in the app ever succeeded. Once again
we resorted to Uber and had a painless experience.

I guess my point overall is that Uber offers a familiar service no matter what
country I happen to be in. It's simply not viable for a foreigner to arrive in
a new country, find out what ride sharing taxi service is allowed existence
there, download the app, finagle my way through the most-likely non english
friendly sign-up process and enter my personal banking details only to find
out the service doesn't even work for whatever reason.

Don't get me wrong, I love traveling to new places and truly exploring a city
without all the luxuries and convenience of home, but when I arrive in a new
place with expensive items in tow, I'd MUCH rather pay for the convenience of
a safe and familiar ride to get to my destination then risk getting scammed or
taken advantage of otherwise, I also don't always arrive with local currency
in tow and don't like paying exorbitant fees at major transport hubs.

~~~
kartan
Does this means that you are ok with breaking the law if some ones offers you
something convenient? Don't you care about workers rights? Should that rights
be removed so you can have cheaper services?

I think that Uber app can bring awesome things. But is still operates in the
real world and should not break the law. And it also should respect workers
rights. One think should not exclude the other.

French law doesn't forbids Uber to operate. It just asks it to have the
correct licenses like any one else.

~~~
spriggan3
> French law doesn't forbids Uber to operate. It just asks it to have the
> correct licenses like any one else.

You are being downvoted but that's a very good point, France isn't the wild
west. Is Uber useful ? no doubt they are, but so are any other illegal taxi
service. The french justice system just said Uber POP is illegal in France.
other Uber services are just fine. Uber hasn't been outlawed in France.

~~~
bubuga
> Is Uber useful ? no doubt they are, but so are any other illegal taxi
> service.

It is my understanding that Uber only has a problem with a single service of
the many they provide: the rideshare one, where unlicensed and unregistered
people get to provide the service for a fee.

This is not the only service provided by uber. Uber also offers transportation
services provided by fully licensed and perfectly legal transport operators.

------
spriggan3
This was a criminal prosecution, so the execs will end up with a criminal
record if they don't win their appeal though they won't go to jail. No need to
say that with a criminal conviction in France, unless you have friends in high
places, your management career is over.

They didn't design these disruptive policies, they obeyed the higher up exec
in San Fransisco. Is it really worth risking a criminal record that won't go
away for Uber ? I don't know... I hope Uber will reward them for their
"loyalty" .

~~~
stale2002
Lol, are joking?

All the managers would have to do is explain the situation of why they have a
"criminal record".

These aren't low level cogs at the company. No employer who is looking to hire
one of these people would bat an eye at the "criminal record".

~~~
dnate
completely agree. I don't know why you are being downvoted

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philfrasty
"...two managers....guilty of deceptive commercial practices and being
accomplices in operating an illegal transportation service and violating
privacy laws..."

Is this something that shows up in your personal criminal record? Or hurts the
managers personally any other way?

Reason I am asking is because usually there is a clear legal separation
between the legal-entity (company) and the people working for it. For example
the legal-entity might go bankrupt but the people running it do not.

~~~
ianferrel
There's a liability separation, which is different.

Failing to make a profit is not against the law. If you do things that are
against the law while working for a company, that doesn't give you any
protection.

You could not, for example, set up an assassination corporation and expect
that the company would take the blame.

------
kartan
Why does people think that software is beyond the law?

The secret services think that reading electronic communications is ok when
the physical counterpart was not.

A company thinks that because they offer their services using and app they are
beyond regulations, permits and other laws.

No, laws still should apply in the virtual world. And apps and the Internet
have real world consequences. It's a shame that judges often are so slow to
apply the law in this cases. And that so often they miss the point.

Now Uber should just do what any bricks and mortar business needs to do and
get a license, operate inside the boundaries of the law and compete with taxis
in a fair way to bring people good services.

~~~
roymurdock
The law is not immutable. It's an evolving code of moral/social expectations
and norms that changes as societies change.

At the end of the day, this was a business decision. Uber weighed the
potential costs ($1m in fines, no jail time, minor brand damage to an already-
sleazy brand) against the potential gain ($10's of m in revenue, foothold in
new market, disruption of competitors) and decided to break the law.

If "society" did not want Uber to break the law, it would need to raise the
associated costs. Almost everyone besides taxi driver unions/medallion-holders
is apathetic to Uber's transgressions. Thus the taxi unions are weakened and
the law changes to reflect changing social sentiment.

------
moribondus
The peer-2-peer mechanism is well understood now. Its economics have clearly
been declared perfectly viable.

Therefore, you could have hundreds of Uber-style networks with a few cross-
network search engines returning search results. That would have exactly the
same effect as having just one Uber.

Transport services are important to the economy. We must always encourage
swarmification of our critical infrastructure.

Furthermore, in a related case, we should be grateful that the powers that be
attacked Napster and shut it down. Decentralization takes a lot of effort and
is not just a natural outcome. The far-reaching decentralization of the
bittorrent ecosystem only came about thanks to the continuous legal attacks
that made it the only solution possible.

Therefore, I advocate sustained legal and other attacks on Uber.

We do not want a centralized system. We will need the attacks orchestrated by
the state apparatus to properly shape a much more decentralized solution.

------
shitgoose
We should admire the selfless relentlessness of French government trying to
protect us from ourselves.

~~~
ciconia
It's not the French government, rather French law, and arguably French values.
I've been living in France for the last 3 years and have come to deeply
appreciate their tenaciousness when it comes to labour relations and worker
rights.

As for the ruling, it's worth noting that the demand for material damage of
the civil parties in the case, notably taxi driver unions, totalling some
114M€, have been rejected, while the court did accord the 5.2M€ in moral
damage[0].

[0]
[http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2016/06/09/uberpop-80...](http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2016/06/09/uberpop-800-000-euros-
d-amende_4944820_3234.html)

~~~
LanceH
_some_ worker's rights.

~~~
linkregister
Indeed, the workers who already have safe jobs have protection and 36 hour
work weeks while the 10.3% of the population who are unemployed are locked
out.

~~~
kuschku
And the alternative would be what? Like the US, everyone working 60h work
weeks and still earning not more than unemployment benefits? (looking at
Walmart, Uber, etc... yup)

~~~
JBReefer
"Everyone" is a giant stretch, there. Are you American? I promise that
midtown-bound subway is not full of people going to work at McDonalds. The
vast majority of people have white-collar, good benefit jobs. Probably more
than the French when you count in the unemployed and the unwelcome in the
banlieues.

~~~
kuschku
> The vast majority of people have white-collar, good benefit jobs

You’re saying over 50% of americans have a white-collar job, with free
healthcare, good benefits, etc?

The actual numbers look more like below 30% do.

43% of americans earn so little that they can’t even save up any money, or pay
off their debts.

