Comment by remus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by remus | Hacker News Reader

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Uber is a big company. They can do good and bad things. I personally really like the service they offer, but that shouldn't mean we should let them get away with it if they do something shitty. For example, in Amsterdam they did the following after one of their services was found to be illegal by the local courts

> Uber identified police officers through data mined from the app and then, using an internal tool called “greyball”, served them a fake view of the UberPop app, populated with ghost cars that wouldn’t stop for them. They could also block anyone from booking in certain zones, like around police stations, using a tool called “geofencing”. [1]

Fair enough if you disagree with the court ruling, but they should abide by the law like everyone else.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-f2971465-73d2-4932-...

They are allowed to push the boundaries against unfair laws. Which protesters have done countless times. Do you think that prochoice activists should follow the laws when constitutional rights are stripped from them?

Should the Dutch farmers who are being regulated out of business sit idly by while all their hard work goes to nothing?

Uber chose to break the rules against an illegal taxi monopoly and I’m thrilled they did because otherwise no one would have been able to break it. Because they put their necks out on the line we have a driving service around the world that would never have existed if we didn’t have them pushing the boundaries.

>Fair enough if you disagree with the court ruling

if you disagree with a court ruling, and then set up intentionally a system to avoid the police detecting you continue your behaviour, you should be punished to the maximum extent of the law. The people who orchestrated that behaviour should have money confiscated from their illegal enrichment, and jail time for purposely working to circumvent a legal order for a court. And if not back then, today.

They pushed against unfair laws, betting they wouldn’t get punished and guess what? They were right.

They broke through all of those unfair laws and now we live in a system that benefits from them breaking the rules for the better. Seriously, you think the taxi monopoly was so much better than now? That’s laughable!

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