French court orders Uber to pay €1.2M to taxi firm | Hacker News Reader

French court orders Uber to pay €1.2M to taxi firm

france24.com

37 pointsflexie36 comments

Okay, well, let's compare.

Uber's violation: possibly not informing their drivers of the hilarious law of having to drive back to your garage after every trip.

National Union of Taxis violation: - Instigating and supporting violence in Paris this summer, cars where set on fire and passengers attacked. - Supporting ongoing a violent rampage that yesterdat blocked a highway, threw tires at innocent drivers and got into a fistfight with the police.

When asked how long the violent rampage will go on this summer, their president commented: "This will go on indefinitely, at least tonight and tomorrow." http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/europe/france-paris-uberpop-pr...

In the cosmic order of right and wrong, it seems to me more appropriate that Uber get their money back, and National Taxi Union might belong behind bars rather than driving passengers.

Or if you want to see the greater picture:

Uber's violation: trying to kill a whole industry by making people act illegally, while also taking 20% of their revenue.

National Union of Taxis violation: trying to not have the lives of the members ruined because an american company thinks it can get rich through illegal behaviour.

I understand your point of view, but wouldn't you agree that the The National Taxi Union's use of violence supersedes their motivations, whatever it may be?

If it was the other way around, if it was Uber who attacked passengers, blocked highways and threw fiery tires at the Taxi Drivers. And The National Taxi Union were breaking the drive-back-to-your garage law. -> Then it seems to me that Uber would be the thugs of the two, regardless of who I support.

Whether you intellectually think the Taxi companies deserve protection from competition, it still seems that the National Taxi Union are the thugs here.

Also heard there still is some shady taxi company, named G7, that has an almost monopoly of the french taxi market.

Not to defend Uber, but I still don't believe you can solve anti-liberal policies by just breaking everything in a niche market like this one, and pretend it's for the sake of progress.

Also, the day Uber rides get taxed like all other taxis, and end up costing as much because they align with french policies, I'm sure Uber will quickly vanish.

Many french medias already talk about the uberisation of society. I don't know if that's already the case in other places. But I think it's totally normal to see people getting angry at an american company who makes profit thanks to an economic model which is not really compatible.

There is already a lot of talk and disagreement over inequality, so in my mind, it's again normal for people to relate this to be another form of capitalistic looting.

> head back to their garages after each fare

What an odd rule in general

Protectionism at its finest.

In the bigger picture, no one benefits from protecting a failed business model. In the long run it even hurts the dinosaurs being protected.

You would think Parisians would oppose that since it increases the distance traveled by the vehicles which ramps up emissions for literally no good reason at all.

Taxi regulations where added for a host of really good reasons. This 'rule' is likely an exception for non Taxi companies which Uber is abusing.

As to pollution, it's common for taxi's to circulate on public roads while waiting for a fair. So, forcing people to go park may be better from a pollution standpoint.

In my experience (unless weather is a factor) most taxi's will park where fares may show up and wait with the engine off, but even if they leave it running idle, idle still uses much less fuel than traveling to the given home, which could be literally anywhere in comparison to where the vehicle is when it drops off a fare, or goes to where a fare may be found.

In Japan, taxis do park opportunistically, waiting for customers ; but they let their engines run. All the time, winter like summer. Even when they leave the car to go for a piss/coffee/cigarette at the next convenience store.

Park, yes, return to HQ, no. See my sibling comment about the logic behind the regulation and a better way to meet its goal: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10981731

Regulating taxis is good.

Not issuing new taxi medaillons, creating a lack of taxis in Paris and making taxi drivers slaves to taxi companies (like G7) who rent them the medaillons (or slaves to banks when they have to pay back a huge loan to buy their own on the black market) is not.

It's not good for consumers, it's not good for taxi drivers, it's only good for monopolistic taxi companies. Yet the drivers don't understand that and think their enemy is Uber.

The public benefits somewhat from by reducing the amount of taxi on the street due to external factors (pollution, accidents, congestion etc).

The problem, is taxi companies benefit by further constricting supply beyond that point and regulatory capture means incumbents have far to much say. IMO, rather than let some companies sidestep the market by pretending not to be taxi while acting like taxi the correct solution is to issue more Taxi Medallions.

To put on my charitable hat for a minute ...

I assume the reason for this law is part of an attempt to distinguish call-a-ride services (that can't accept line-of-sight street hails) from taxis (which can).

The fear would then be that someone doing the former can do some of the nuisance stuff associated with the latter, but without passing the appropriate regulatory hurdles -- i.e., they might cruise around hoping to be near a ride, which medallion limits exist to prevent.

Even then, I would think regulators would adapt this kind of thing to a world where a call-a-ride car is very likely to be near a person who specifically asks for them. At the very least, they should change it to something like, "you have to be pulled over when looking for rides".

(Admittedly, that's all speculation.)

> i.e., they might cruise around hoping to be near a ride, which medallion limits exist to prevent.

I'd be interested to see how the extra traffic caused by drivers cruising around compares to the extra traffic caused by drivers needing to drive back to a garage, only to be called out again.

In networking terms...Analogous to having to send and receive traffic from localhome after each external packet received, no?

Not really relatable to networking terms. That analogy doesn't accurately convey the idea.

You would think, if you were being honest about it, that you could build into your app a "checkin at my garage" function that would allow you to prove that after each fair your driver followed the law and went back to their garage.

Or you could just pay the tax for not following the law.

I don't see how disobeying the law is any more dishonest than following it, the courts are going to tax you for it but as long as you pay there shouldn't be any problems.

So, as long as I have the cash, breaking the law isn't an issue for you?

That's the point of fines, you pay what is essentially a tax for your behaviour.

Morality is a whole different thing, I for one don't find it immoral for a driver to pick up passengers without stopping at the garage first.

Anyway, it's called civil disobedience. I'd have though HN would be the last place to condemn that.

Are you seriously calling an attempt of Uber to bypass French laws for financial gain "civil disobedience"?

Because that's exactly what it is?

This might be different if the law in question wasn't utterly ridiculous.

Because of these people, sensible countries adjust the amount of fine based on the wrongdoer's income.

Which I would assume France is also doing.

This law is beyond stupid. So if the driver drops off a fare, and then checks their app, and immediately sees a request for a ride nearby, instead of going to pick up that rider, they have to go BACK to the garage?

Yes, because they're not allowed to offer a taxi service. If they want to do that, they have to follow the regulations of taxi services. But that's not in uber's interest, because they want a monopoly on the market.

As an American, it always seems odd to me to see these significant payouts to what appear to be private organizations (in this case the National Union of Taxis, in previous cases with Amazon the French Bookseller's Union [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/01/amazons-free-ship...) for violation of public law.

For the record, the Uber fine (which I don't approve) is nothing compared to the BNP fine imposed by the U.S.

cf. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bnp-paribas-settlement-idU...

And for the record, if we were talking about Uber having driven the Paris terrorists to their drop off, this would be a valid comparison. But that's not what we're talking about, and its not.

That wouldn't even be close to the situation. The equivalent would be if uber, at the highest levels, reached out to terrorist networks and helped them get from compound to compound.

Huh? What do you call punitive damages, then?

Considering these laws are enacted in order to protect private businesses from unfair practice, it makes perfect sense to me.

Of course, whether this particular law is really about fair business practices vs. protecting a monopoly is an entirely different debate.

Was this law something that existed in isolation or part of a long list that regulate the taxi market? In contrast to US, courts in Europe put more weight on the intent of the law makers than the law text itself, but the description in the article does not seem to cover that angle.

Just FYI, 'mn' means million. Had not seen it shortened like that before.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com