Uber Now Blocked All Over Germany 312
An anonymous reader writes Following the blocking of Uber in Berlin, DE, the district court of Frankfurt/Main has issued a restraining order for Uber services all over Germany (German original). The district court is alleging "uncompetitive behavior" (Unlauteres Wettbewerbsverhalten) on Uber's part, and has proclaimed that not following the restraining order will result in a fine of €250.000 or imprisonment. This ruling is related to the German "Personenbeförderungsgesetz" and is outlining that no legal entity (person, enterprise) is allowed to transfer passengers without having passed the relevant tests and having the appropriate insurance coverage.
Good... (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to play in our market? Play by our rules. Don't claim that your 'innovative new paradigm' renders those rules obselete and ignore them.
Re:Uncompetitive? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do it for any reason other than being "uncompetitive". What the heck is so "uncompetitive"?
It takes money from the taxi monopoly and the state doesn't get their cut of fees, taxes and licensing money. Can't have that so it must be uncompetitive.
Re:ITT... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well a lot of these countries have rules that are made to prevent US companies from gaining traction there. Sure they hide it in terms of safety or something else the normal electorate can swallow but if you look at the details of the laws it is in essence an FU America law.
Re:ITT... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's more "FU people who think profit uber alles is the right way to do business" laws. That you identify that as uniquely American is pretty telling.
Re:ITT... (Score:5, Insightful)
How so?
The rules in question here are questions of insurance, of proper training for drivers, of car maintenance... the same rules that cab drivers and companies in Germany have been following for many years.
How are these rules 'made to prevent US companies from gaining traction'?
Unless of course, having local law that everybody (local companies as well as US companies) have to follow is preventing US companies in your eyes. I mean, sure, they are not used to actually having to follow laws they don't like. It's real mean of European governments and regulators to actually check whether companies follow the law...
Re:ITT... (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't about protectionism.
This is about countries having laws and expecting everybody to follow them.
Sure, US companies are not used to do that, but that is a problem of the US, not of the other countries.
Germany has laws regulating persons and companies that want to be active in the transport business. These laws where not made to keep US companies out. The laws are a lot older than Uber. They are there to protect consumers and give them a certain amount of safety.
Ubers profits are not more important than everybodies safety.
Re:Uncompetitive? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, that's fraud, and should be treated as such.
I suppose victims of a DNS should just suck it up?
Re:Anti-competitive behavior is a big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anti-competitive behavior is a big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anti-competitive behavior is a big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, attacking government revenue streams is not exactly anti competative though. But this is the world we live in. This is such a hard thing to explain to the layperson.
You realize are real costs involved Uber isn't paying? Taxis are commercial services and part of their fees are used to maintain roads and public facilities they use more heavily than private drivers. They are also required to provide equal access and maintain a certain percentage of handicap accessible vehicles available at all times. They also have to carry the proper insurance because if they skirted the law on this point, the rest of us would end up paying.
And that's about what's happening with Uber and Lyft. We will end up paying the costs they are ignoring. To make matters worse, those costs will be spread out over everyone even those most will never use these services. As it's a semi-elite market, that translate to those who can least afford it will subsidize cheaper rides for those who can and we'll all pay added tax dollars essentially straight into the pockets of Uber's founders. I can't blame Germany for being smart and making them follow the rules.
Re:Anti-competitive behavior is a big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Many regulations are in place to assure safety and the public good. However, all too often, the regulated get control of the regulatory agencies ("regulatory capture") and then regulations are created to preserve the incumbents dominant market position and/or business model.
Apparently regulation is "socialist" (Score:5, Insightful)
This applies for all taxicab companies, no matter their size. What Uber is doing is to make an end-run around those laws by offering taxicab rides from drivers who *don't* meet those requirements. Makes it easy to undercut people who do abide by the law eh? Sounds like unfair competition to me.
So how the hell is enforcing such laws "Socialist"?
And whoever decided this Anonymous Coward's drive-by comment qualifies as "insightful"?
Re:Anti-competitive behavior is a big deal (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Anti-competitive behavior is a big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
"suddenly there is unfair competition?"
It's not the app. Yes, you can drive people around the city in your car, but once you start charging them to take them somewhere, you are operating a taxi service.
Either we overregulate these services and all taxi companies should be able to operate in an unregulated manner, or we have sufficient regulation and therefore Uber must play by the rules. But the status quo is certainly neither fair nor sustainable.
Re:Insurance and a 1099 (Score:4, Insightful)
I think its a case of German law makers thinking: If it looks like a taxi, and acts like a taxi, then it should be regulated like a taxi. Can't really fault them on this.
The bigger issue is that Uber, Lyft, etc. are trying to take advantage of the lag between what is available (Hail a taxi via an app), and what the current incumbent do now, by bypassing the current laws. This is admirable from a competition perspective, but not by sacrificing all laws to get there and compete.
Uber is notorious at this point for operating full steam ahead, against regulation, and even court rulings, to get into place. I am not surprised Germany took a dim view of their antics and slapped them.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/6067663/this-is-ubers-playbook-for-sabotaging-lyft [theverge.com]
Some regulations are in place to protect drivers, others are in place to protect passengers. To declare yourself immune to them all is lovely, but its as effective as me declaring myself King of the Internet and demanding all my subjects to send me $5.
Adding "with the help of a mobile app" to the end of your business plan, does not suddenly make a brand new industry and to pretend otherwise is delusional (except to shareholders or venture capitalists).
Re:Anti-competitive behavior is a big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
In Europe trying to refute an action by calling it socialist doesn't work.
Re:Anti-competitive behavior is a big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
The dirty tricks you listed all take the same form: excluding people from the market. If you believe that we all have a fundamental right to buy and sell and provide services and otherwise participate in commerce, then the only discussion is how best to approach that ideal. Laws that grant monopolies or create significant barriers to entry are wholly bad under that lens.
Of course there's a tension there between that freedom and a different set of dirty tricks: fraud and unsafe products. There's very little dissent, outside of the extreme corners of libertarianism, that regulations to insure some sort of minimum quality/safety are good in principle. But it's quite odd how, whenever someone suggests that the market is unduly restricted by heavy-handed government monopoly granting, the speaker is accused of wanting to destroy safety regulations.
If you want a market where it's easy for anyone to participate, you want both minimum-possible government barriers to entry and a significant government role in fraud prevention and safety. It's not a "more vs less government" argument at all, really. That's just a distraction. The real question is "given that we need some government role in product safety and fraud prevention, how do we prevent that grant of power to the government from being twisted and corrupted into monopoly-granting?"