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I see a great degree of superficiality in all comments. Uber has been banned for breaking the italian law, period. That the law for taxi and similar services might be too much restrictive and could be improved in favour of the market is a completely different matter. In Italy there are precise rules regarding where and how you can pick up passengers and Uber is violating them. This is why it was banned. The sentence even states this explicitly: that the duty of the magister is to apply the current law and not the enter in the merits of how it could be improved for the benefit of the market. Did anybody read the sentence before commenting?

Uber has been also banned in Berlin and Amburg and I haven't seen any similar comment here. I would be very curios to understand why.

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Uber has been banned in Berlin and Hamburg for operating an illegal taxi service without applying for the required papers. The were breaking the law, simple as that. It's a thing Uber likes to do, it's just not working as well in the EU as in other regions of the world.

as far as i am aware nobody voted for Uber in last elections in Italy to be the one changing the laws

if you wanna do business you must follow to law, if you don't like it then either change law or go back to US where are people apparently more relaxed about breaking law, but Stilton is not do business while breaking law

solution

> Stilton

The best autocorrection I've seen for ages!

> And in fact they have not been banned: they have been given 10 days to adjust to the italian regulations ELSE they will be banned.

Can you share the source for this information? I've been having trouble finding out any details about why they were banned, and the articles I've read just say they were banned, not that they have 10 days to comply.

The primary English source seems to be a brief Reuters article with no details.

You are right, I misunderstood what I read. They have been given 10 days to comply and not to adjust. I have amended my comment.

It is a reasonable assumption. I would hope that if Uber complies with whatever laws they were found to be violating, that they could continue operating.

However, whether that's a plausible outcome depends on the reason why they're banned. If the Italian court determined that the "ease of hailing rides through a smartphone app" was the reason why competition was "unfair" (just to make something up - I haven't been able to discover the actual reason), then there's no real way for them to come into compliance.

Laws get _applied_ by judges, they're not always black and white.

There are many, many sentences that apply a law in a different way given a specific case, that create a precedent that can then be used in the future to regulate something. You don't need a new law.

I am not a lawyer, but I'm not sure judges weren't allowed to choose to do that in this case.

Please beware Italy is not a common law country so legal precedents are not binding, and you do need a new law here to future regulate something.

It isn't a common law country, but there is the concept of precedent, and the majority of sentences will actually not override a previous sentence given the same kind of issue.

I was actually talking about this with a lawyer because of a problem I was having, and that's what he told me. You can pretty safely use precedents to guide you on what you want to do. The difference is that laws tend to of course carry less uncertainty than precedents, and you can't get punished if you were following a law (unless it gets changed retroactively). In case of a trial (in my case, at least), you would admit that you haven't followed the law, but cite the precedents and most likely win.

So, precedents are not binding, but in practice they're close to it.

In Roman Law, legal precendents are one of the sources of the law system. If there is no explicit regulation about a matter, It is recommended that Judges apply other Judges' decisions. If two Judges at the same level decides differently, the matter is solved in higher courts.

I think a number of commenters here probably don't understand the culture outside of the US. I'm not judging or saying any one country is better than another, but some places don't place as much credence on the free market and businesses regulating themselves.

I see a great degree of superficiality in all comments. These seismologists [1] were convicted for breaking the Italian law, period. That the law that allows to jail seismologists for not predicting earthquakes could be improved is a completely different matter. In Italy there are precise rules regarding how to warn people of earthquakes and these scientists have violated them. This is why they're in prison. The sentence even states this explicitly: that the duty of the magister is to apply the current law and not the enter in the merits of how it could be improved for the benefit of the people. Did anybody read the sentence before commenting?

Scientists have also been put to prison in Russia and North Korea, and I haven't seen any similar comments here. I would be very curious to understand why.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20025626

Again, let me reiterate that BBC and in general British press are often biased against Italy.

These are the facts: all the scientists have been absolved. The only person convicted has been the vice-president of the civil protection for declaring in public ( and in TV ) at the beginning of the earthquake that there were "absolutely no risks" associated to the initial earthquake waves. He has been found guilty of providing superficial, generic and inaccurate informations in relation to the role and responsabilities he was covering.

Instead of merely reporting acritically what you read in newspapers from other countries , if you want to be objective try also to read italian newspapers:

http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2015/11/20/terremoto-laquila...

Right now you are just showing your bias as many others have done before you. These are just personal attacks against a country and are not based on any fact. Can we start to downvote these kind of posts??

Oh god, spare me this bullshit. I'm not British, or American, I just put up the first source that's considered reasonably reliable (nobody's gonna complain about BBC, right? Or so I thought!) And yet here you are, because god forbid somebody paints Italian justice system in less than positive light. You might have noticed that I even insulted my own country (Russia) in my post, so you can't say I'm biased or anything. And it's not like there's lack of examples I could've chosen. Berlusconi, Amanda Knox, the list goes on and on.

Nobody was jailed. They were eventually acquitted in appeal.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/italy-s-supreme-court...

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

Are you seriously comparing institutional racism to taxi regulations...?

I just can't even.

Comparing two things only requires the presence of an analogy, not moral equivalence.

> In Italy there are precise rules regarding where and how you can pick up passengers and Uber is violating them.

Do those rules make any sense? If they broke a nonsense law, then it's not as simple as "broke the law, period". Maybe there should be outrage against the people that put the law into place. But that's only an 'if'.

It doesn't matter. That's something that should be brought up and discussed in parliament and then either changed or accepted as it is. The people enforcing the laws have to follow the legislation as it stands.

There is a thing called discretion. Perhaps France should jail a few million women for wearing pants?

Just because something is "law" doesn't mean you have an obligation to follow it.

Uber offers services far superior to uncompetitive, entitled taxi drivers that should've been put out of business years ago. I hope Uber will continue operations in Italy.

Uncompetitive? Uber has spent billions subsidising taxi rides. That is the very definition of uncompetitive!

If they charged the amount to of money needed to actually turn a profit/breakeven then suddenly all those regular taxi companies would be competitive at worst and cheaper in many situations.

How is it uncompetitive to sell at a loss to provide cheaper services to customers? How is that a bad thing for customers? It looks like it's only a bad thing for taxi companies (a tiny percentage of the population) while it's a good thing for the majority of Italians, this law protects and favors corporations instead of the people, this is the textbook definition of Fascism.

Edit: About price dumping, this is a myth. When has this ever happened and tell me how could Uber remain a monopoly if its prices are too high? Competitors will show up because there will be good money to be made. The only monopolies that can last despite being overpriced are the ones protected by state violence and state laws that make competition illegal, a good example here would be, I don't know, Italian taxi companies?

Also see on how accusations of 'price dumping' are always used as a disguised for protectionism https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/ecjilt/23876.html

It's bad because as soon as the competition dies out they can jack up the prices..

If they jack up prices, many competitors will spring up because there will be good money to be made. How is that a problem exactly? Also, price dumping is a myth always use for protectionism ends, see https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/ecjilt/23876.html

I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Uber is a special case. I very much doubt that if Uber begins to jack up prices another multi-billion $ funded startup will come along and re apply the Uber playbook against Uber. And even if it did, the turmoil this would cause would be against the best interests of the general public.

Are you kidding me? Multi-billion dollars companies losing customers because their prices are too high and resulting in more competition happens _all_ the time. Just one example, linux (redhat) on the server vs Microsoft Windows Server. Low cost airlines vs regular airlines etc. When a company starts pricing their products too high, competitors will appear (unless you make specific laws like this one in Italy making competition illegal) simply because they are attracted by the money that can still be made with lower prices. That's market economy 101. Why are so many hackers so bad at basic economics?

> That's market economy 101. Why are so many hackers so bad at basic economics?

I'm a high school IT teacher, so I don't pretend to know much about economics :)

You may be right that the market will work itself out. I don't think free markets are a solution to every problem though. Some industries are highly regulated with state sanctioned monopolies because the free market can't be relied upon to provide a reasonable solution. Look to US healthcare as an example of free market economics gone awry.

The SV mantra of "move fast and break things" works well if you're building some new dating app, not so much if you're potentially disrupting something that's actually important. If Uber strong arms its way into a market and then subsequently shits the bed, then what? How do local economies deal with the resulting vacuum? Maybe the vacuum get's filled, and if it doesn't? Then what?

There are other industries where such disruption is not tolerated. Can you imagine if power, sanitation or road maintenance was completely deregulated and some foreign entrant was allowed to come in like a wrecking ball to experiment with "innovative" new models? The potential downsides far outweigh the possible upsides.

Maybe taxis don't fit into the critical infrastructure jigsaw puzzle. I'm not qualified to comment on that, but I can see how Uber's tactics can have a net negative impact on the communities it enters. We'll see how it all plays out in good time. There are enough markets that are allowing Uber to operate that eventually it will shake out one way or another.

Who is paying taxes here? Isn't this a loss for citizens?

Taxi-drivers willing or not have to pay taxes. They definitely do also "black" money, but at the end of the month they'll have to declare X euros in / Y euros out.

Do you have to do the same if you are a driver for Uber?

Taxi drivers are paid in cash. Uber drivers are paid exclusively using electronic systems. Guess which one is easier to avoid declaring?

It's uncompetitive because the only purpose of doing so is to ensure other less VC-backed companies are driven out of business, creating a monopoly. Which needless to say, isn't good as in the long term for its customer base as nice VC-subsidised rides are in the short term. It's not a charitable endeavour, and they're not subsidising rides out of an intention to extract less profit from the public in the long term.

Calling the banning of a company which has pointedly ignored every law that gets in its way "fascism" is just childish, and when it's referring to a country that actually suffered the results of having a Fascist government, it's offensive childishness.

Selling at a loss when you have a lot of money will give you an unfair advantage over others that can't sell at a loss.

You do that so that you can take a stranglehold on the market and then dictate prices yourselves.

It's the texbook definition of dumping:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

and protecting against that practice is NOT the texbook definition of fascism at all, quite the opposite; also keep in mind there are no taxi corporations here, as the taxi license must be owned by the individual driving it (with some small and irrelevant exception).

That being said, I wouldn't have a problem with Uber selling its services as long as they abide by the law, they and their drivers pay the taxes and they don't engage in anti-competitive practices.

They charge less than their product costs. They have no other product to subsides this. There is no plan that will lead them to profitability.

They are a zombie firm, existent purely due to the infusions of external, non-business activity derived cash.

So Italy is saving Uber from itself?

Stop the capitalism welfare! Let Uber burn itself to the ground!

Alas, due to the chronic miss allocation of capital Uber's bonfire of VC money will take down lots of productive businesses and sole traders (existing minicab operators and taxi firms) before it goes.

> Let Uber burn itself to the ground!

They may cause great havoc on their way down. Some jurisdictions are anticipating this and banning Uber preemptively.

This is rational. Let Uber prove that it's viable on someone else's turf. If it does so, then great, the laws can be changed and Uber can be admitted into the market later. If it turns out to be a total disaster then these jurisdictions have saved themselves a lot of trouble.

> far superior

Exactly! Instead of strikes and whining, the taxi drivers should have a hard look at themselves why people like Uber better besides money. Because those entitled drivers are not providing quality of service compared to Uber and they should be out of business. I hope Uber continues as even legally (aka more expensive) they would beat regular cabs easily.

What kind of "superior" quality? It's easy when you don't need to buy a license whose cost can go up to 200'000 euros and you need 15-20 years to pay it off, and when you have no rules to follow.

Well if you remove the newer cars and better rates, both which I do not care much about and also can understand it might be(not sure) unfair, you still have cleaner cars, friendly, english speaking, non rude and non scamming drivers.

Taxi drivers in all countries, even with me having Google maps, will try to take longer routes. They are often rude because complacent: why not, you cannot pick your driver anyway right? Spanish, Italian, HK, Shanghai taxi drivers generally speak no English: their Uber counterparts do. Might not be good but they try because ratings.

I travel a lot and everywhere and take taxis anywhere (do not like subways) and regular taxi standards universally awful; we miss Uber instantly.

My friend from Portugal always jokes about how rude the drivers are in his country when we get in/out a cab with him; he imitates them etc but then says 'what can you do?'.

I'm sorry, but you're coming across as a parody of an awful America tourist.

I don't think the majority of Italians are going to be all beat up about the fact that taxi drivers in their country speak (gasp!) Italian and not English.

Although, stalking you via your HN profile, I note that you may not in fact be American. That just means you have no excuse!

But wait: I actually understand Italian. The point is not that they do not speak English, the point is; it is another point of service. He asked what superior service; multi lang is better than unilang right?

And they do their best to accomodate you even as a foreigner.

And maybe it is different in Italy, but in NL (where I am from) not too many people like the rude regular cab drivers: it is not only tourists :) That has changed a bit since Uber but not a lot so still not a lot of incentive to take the regular ones.

It's not something that I would personally worry about when taking a taxi. As long as you can say the name of your destination, or write it down, you'll be ok. I doubt it's more than a very small minority of people in Italy who will miss Uber for this reason.

Sure, but it is extra service beyond regular cabs wether or not you might need or want it is something else.

Okay, I'll start supporting Uber in those dreadful HN threads, as soon as a majority of Uber drivers in the US speaks German. Promise!

Still not what I meant or implied. Maybe my dutch-english brain is off today as I do not know how to say it differently; I was not singling out language; it is an advantage. An advantage; not the top one, not the most important by any means. But wow, everyone is touchy about that. As native Dutch I would not mind the rest of my life speaking English or Spanish or German or Mandarin and never Dutch but I see others really fly off the handle. I am a person who goes to countries prepared and I speak my languages; I said it is an extra feature for drivers, not a must.

Seems like they should complain to whoever charges such extortionate licenses.

Except of course they won't, because they like those licenses, as they reinforce their monopoly. So complaining that Uber doesn't pay them is just like any cartel complaining that the newcomer doesn't play by their rules.

Are you saying that the people should never discuss laws, only parliament should?

Let me try stating my point again: in "they broke the law, period" I am fine with "they broke the law", but I object to ", period". ", period" is an explicit discussion-ender. We should not be ending the discussion immediately without considering the pros and cons of that law.

I could claim the same about medicine. Why can't you sell medicine? Why do you need to have a license for that?

If there is a law, you can't simply break it and claim that the country is too old and full of lobbies (both may be true, still you are not entitled to enter a country and break the rules just because you are "cool" and "the new"). This is not how this world works.

Somebody should have let Rosa Parks know that. /s

Define "entitled". Legally entitled? No, but that's irrelevant, since by definition you are never legally entitled to break the law. Ethically entitled? That's arguable. Personally, I have no problem with people and companies openly breaking laws in ways that only harm people in the long run. And I have no problem with the authorities punishing them for it. It's a kind of stress test of the political system. Lots of bad laws remain due to complacency and inertia, so there's value in forcing a decision when conditions change.

Oh that's relevant. I don't understand why Netflix has to deal with Warner & co. to buy rights for streaming, while Uber is above the law. All this just because it's "the new".

It's easy to become rich and powerful when you play with different rules.

How is that a reply to what I wrote?

Because I think this is how this world works. There are laws, and some of them are old, yet, they are there for a reason.

All companies have to adapt, you (the company owner) find the way out and then complain a country is "behind".

You see this as a stress test, and while I agree with you because as I wrote above things could have been done differently, it's also true that there are many companies innovating without breaking laws (see the iphone, etc), meaning that you don't necessarily have to break the law to do something good. There are other more peaceful ways to propose your ideas, but the reality is that they wouldn't bring innovation "right now, the way I want it". At least, that's my opinion. Sometimes things take time. We are talking about a whole category of people that you want to replace just because you think they are out of date.

Do you really think Netflix wants to pay warner? Do you think that they want to set geographical limitations?

Sure, I agree with all that. And if the authorities believe that the laws shouldn't be changed right now, then can and should punish companies for it - like Italy is doing.

But the test, the confrontation itself is still valuable, and I think Uber is ethically entitled to try.

The laws about medicine generally make sense, even if you don't agree with the balance they strike.

> If there is a law, you can't simply break it

Don't strawman me. I didn't say they should get to break any law. I just said that bad laws should be complained about and not just blindly followed.

Uber is free to pick up passengers anywhere they like in Italy - as long as they do it on their own property. Public roads, public rules. It's really as simple as that.

> Do those rules make any sense?

Sometimes the law sucks but there is a democratic process in order for it to change. A US company knowingly breaking the law repeatedly cannot get a pass because the local law "doesn't make any sense to them". Uber had no problem breaking laws everywhere it operates in Europe, until the justice catches up.

I see a lot of these comments whenever Uber or other taxi based app's law violation are highlighted.

In my country, taxis have always been a cumbersome and painful existences. Trying to catch an early morning international flight meant - either trusting an unreliable operator to send you a taxi or paying way above the market rates to reach the airport on time.

What the apps have achieved is this: for me, as a customer, hailing a taxi is as simple as pressing a button. for a driver, they allow customer acquisitions to be super easy and not depend on unreliable operators. I am really grateful to the apps for this and happily pay the apps the middleman/operator fee.

But, the same apps routinely break laws in various countries and that too knowingly. It doesn't matter if the law makes sense to the multi-national company or not. They are supposed to follow the rule of the land. If every other MNC thought itself to be above the law of the land, I can't imagine what the world might look like. Like say for example - no Chrome or other browsers because MS could (did?) think that the EU anti-competition law was nonsense. They could continue shipping Windows with IE and asking people to outrage against the nonsense law which made it difficult for people (without a technical know how) to get a browser and get on the internet.

The state apologists who think that 'the law' is some kind of holy bible, when there clearly are far better outcomes from sidestepping overly burdenous regulations is appalling but not surprising. It's no surprise that the US consistently outperforms the EU in GDP growth and innovation.

The best approach to burdenous regulation is to grow fast enough to challenge it.

Innovation almost always sidestep regulations, by definition. It offer a better way than the current way which is regulated according to its current specificities, and to offer this better way to do thing is to sidestep regulations to show how much better it is. Forcing innovators to "respect the law" squarely is basically killing innovation and why we see so little of it in the EU compared to the US. Note that regulations are also growing in the US and it keeps getting worse too sadly.

> Innovation almost always sidestep regulations, by definition

No it doesn't. And we're not talking about "Innovation" here, we're talking about a pure lucrative business.

Uber did bring an innovative business model and service.

Sorry, how do you distinguish between regulation that's 'overly burdenous' and regulation that's fair and sensible?

Also, how do you measure innovation?

yeah, because US is so superior students have to pay student loans for years and people must have funding campaigns to have enough money for simple medical procedures covered by healthcare in Europe

hope you are enjoying that superior GDP in your wallet and daily life

There's also a genocide against the black nation going on in the US, but they don't talk about that too much, do they.

What exactly are you referring to?

I assume that by "state apologists" you mean law-abiding citizens and by "sidestepping overly burdenous regulations" you mean "breaking the law"?

The law is not a "holy Bible" but in order for society to function people need to obey the law, and if they disagree with it, they need to use the democratic process to change it.

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