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The ruling (PDF), issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union this morning, will increase pressure on the not-a-taxi biz, and follows a decision that saw its services classed as transport, not digital.
The case relates to charges French authorities want to bring against UberPop - a ride-sharing service that links non-professional, unlicensed drivers with people in need of a lift - and whether it is an information society service. Uber France is trying to slip out of the regulatory net by arguing it is an information society service, which would mean it fell under rules set out in an EU directive on technical standards and regulations. This directive (PDF) stated that member states have to tell the European Commission about any draft rules or legislation that set out technical regulations of information services or products - the idea being to allow Brussels to ensure national laws comply with digital single market rules.
The French authorities didn’t do this for the criminal legislation they are trying to use to charge Uber, and so, as the ECJ noted in its judgement “Uber France infers from this that it cannot therefore be prosecuted on the charges”.
However, the ECJ was not persuaded. It reminded Uber it had last year ruled that the UberPop service offered in Spain was a transport service - not a digital one. The two countries’ services, in the court's view, are “essentially identical”.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 12 2018, @11:07AM (6 children)
No, all of civilization is not remotely based upon that. That is a fairly new idea that has never really worked to do anything except ensure that there is no competition for entrenched players in whatever industry is being regulated.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday April 12 2018, @04:17PM
> fairly new idea
You need more coffee.
Tribal councils, nobles or kings, settling disputes between two parties is at least a couple orders of magnitude older than the USA.The fact that they settle them based on expected (non-written) standards for a job is a given, and having people pay taxes for the infrastructure that supports the people who aren't producing food or goods because they spend their time overseeing others is older than the pyramids. Your ability to compete with others was long restricted by your skills (did daddy do that job?), the cost of entry, and your knack at dealing with both customers and whatever authority didn't want to be disturbed by the consequences of shoddy work.
The only (maybe) recent thing is that every transaction is individually taxed.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:18PM (4 children)
Yeah regulation on trade and services is such a new idea. Only a few thousand years old:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp [yale.edu]
That said this civilization stuff is fairly new too. Only a few thousand years old. Oh wow what a coincidence.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 12 2018, @10:52PM (3 children)
Exactly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @03:46AM (2 children)
These regulations and others came hand in hand with civilization. As a civilization grew so did its rules and regulations.
In small village you don't need as many rules to deal with strangers that you might never meet again. In a town or city it becomes more efficient to have more publicly known laws and regulations dealing with such interactions. Even more so when you start having inter-city trade.
It's the difference between playing a game with your friends in the village vs strangers playing a game with each other in the city.
In the village friends scenario you could change the rules, you might not need that many rules - you're friends after all and you all want to keep playing with each other, there's not that many others to play with. You could do Calvinball and everyone might even enjoy it.
Not so true and efficient when you have thousands of strangers playing the game and many playing for keeps and having the option to run away to hide in another city.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 13 2018, @10:51AM (1 child)
It's a whole lot less new than regulatory capture is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @01:41PM
Tsk tsk. You're moving the goal posts.
You said: "you believe that if Person A gives Person B a lift for free all's good but if the same Person A charges the same Person B money you should regulate and tax the fuck out of them?"
Bob said: "All of civilization is based on making sure people get what they pay for, safely, and paying for the overhead that makes it possible."
And you said: "That is a fairly new idea that has never really worked to do anything except ensure that there is no competition for entrenched players in whatever industry [emphasis mine] is being regulated."
(emphasis to show that you yourself weren't talking about a very specific case of regulation).
Your claim that it was a new idea was shown to be wrong. So now you disingenuously try to change to something else. Not going to waste my time on someone intellectually dishonest.