I'm so tired of this talking point. Either follow our laws or get the fuck out of our market.
There's no special right for American companies to ignore our rules and when they get fined for breaking them, that's just rule of law.
Maybe there's been enough regulatory capture that big corps can ignore laws on the other side of the pond, but for now, we are still a society of law and justice.
Yeah, I find the notion that human judgement is superior to algorithmic judgement to be pretty suspect… look at Jens Ludwig’s work on judges, it’s not like involving a human improves outcomes somehow
Figure out how many humans are required to make the decisions, then hire that many humans and have them do it.
I swear this is like a restaurant chain complaining that they shouldn't be required to follow foodservice regulations because of how much money it costs them at scale.
What an unusual situation, a big company that has to manage infraction reports from their employees. I don't know... how does Starbucks, McDonalds, Volkswagen or Carrefour do? Do they have, maybe, managers or a human resources department? I'm just talking out loud.
Just how many cases are there? Surely not actually that great number that some employees can not manually go over the details. Maybe cut the developer and executive pay by say 20% and you can easily cover cost of those employees.
We’ve gotta normalize linking to the underlying ruling. Uber says they didn’t automate any permanent suspensions and the regulator says they did; how can anyone interpret this story without more information on how the regulator determined this?
> GDPR rules ban decisions made solely by computer algorithms when they have a significant impact on people’s lives, such as on employment, saying such decisions require meaningful human review and a way to challenge a decision.
The law Uber broke. I can’t believe they found it that difficult to follow something as simple as that.
> The case against Uber concerns European incidents from 2018 to 2022, stemming initially from a French complaint. It was handled by the Dutch regulator because Uber’s European headquarters are in the Netherlands.
They didn’t find it difficult, they found it expensive and figured they could avoid it. In the US, they’d probably have been right; in the EU, apparently not.
I know what you are referring to but it doesn't. Read carefully again, it's carefully word smithed. The case is between 2018-2022. Uber says they have human review now that doesn't mean they did have human review in that time period.
Which is ridiculous on it's face, imagine claiming that stopping someone's income until you get around to reviewing it doesn't have a significant effect on someone.
The real issue is if uber comes away from this thinking they can do a rubber stamp review, because the point of the law was clearly to stop unjustifiable decisions automatically being made(protecting both parties), as uber will still be on the hook for unjustified suspensions but redress will need to go through the court making it worse for all involved.
This fine is for the entire EU, the complaint was filed in France but handled by the Dutch because Ubers european headquarters is located in the Netherlands.
I am curious, if the algorithm provided the recommendation and a person had to say agree or disagree for each would that be against the law?
Uber may want to reconsider operating in the Netherlands- would be surprised if they get this much in profit from this region. Unfortunately for them these laws are EU wide.
> Uber temporarily suspended accounts of some drivers who were suspected of fraud, including when its systems concluded drivers had taken unnecessary detours to inflate fares or accepted trips without intending to complete them
Regardless of how Uber did it, these kind of drivers should be removed from the platform. This happened to me more than once. It’s quite frustrating as an example you want to get to airport and a driver has accepted your request, but you can see in the app the vehicle doesn’t move. One time this happened for all requests on Uber when I wanted to go to airport early morning and had to switch to Bolt
But wouldn't you want a human to be involved in this process?
Let's say you run a legitimate SaaS company, and a cloud provider suspends your account due to an allegation of fraud. Wouldn't you prefer a human is involved?
To me that seems pretty reasonable when people's livelihood is at stake.
I almost lost a connection to a flight once using Bolt. Driver had confirmed, and at the last minute decided not to come. Of course on short notice could not find another driver had a friendly hotel worker who drop me off.
Bolt was their hands and refereed me to the their customer agreements:
"Bolt says it is in no way responsible for performance of the transport contract between you and the transport provider."
"Their liability section goes further in Clause 6.1 says Bolt does not guarantee the quality or freedom from defects of the transport service. It says losses connected with the transport contract, including accidents, are not Bolt's responsibility."
F#%&uck Bolt, Uber and all the corrupt politicians who allow these innovative disruption "businesses"
I disagree, all those issues you pointed out are there with a normal taxi as well. However, what Uber has done for passengers is that drastically reduce the probability of getting scammed or abused by drivers.
Try getting a taxi in a country as a tourist where uber doesn’t operate and I bet 99% of the time you would get scammed or charged twice or three times as the normal cost of the ride
Thai taxis are notorious for off meter fares, but a savvy tourist can avoid them mostly (flag down a cab, don't take one waiting for you or worse, offering a ride).
I've made it work for me when the legit cabs had a long wait - I offered an off meter fare and I got instant service.
I once calculated the fare using a taxi fare site and the verbal off meter rate was lower than the estimated one. I gave him the higher rate.
Off meter isn't so black or white, that said I always prefer uber or similar regional cabs.
I had overall much better experience with taxis in Barcelona than Uber anywhere else it operates (I mostly use it in SoCal). One time I missed last train and had to use a taxi - driver multiple times asked if I understand that it will be 50-60 euros because of how far it is.
Taxis in Da Nang, Vietnam were also nice, but there were all arranged by the hotel, so that's probably why.
The opposite experience anywhere in the US. Taxi accepting credit card still a surprise for me.
So according to the regulator Uber automatically suspended driver accounts that were flagged in decision of fraud or due to low ratings. They also failed to inform drivers about the automated decision making.
Here is the statement from the Dutch data protection authority:
Uber made fully automated decisions regarding drivers. In cases of suspected fraud or excessively low customer ratings, driver accounts were automatically temporarily deactivated or, in the case of persistently low ratings, permanently deactivated. As a result, their income from Uber ceased during the deactivation period.
Uber thereby violated the ban on fully automated decision-making under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The AP also found that Uber failed to adequately inform drivers about the automated decision-making. Uber has since ceased the violations.
Reference to the law that was broken (GDPR): [2][3]
Article 22.1: The data subject shall have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her.
Article 13.2f: In addition to the information referred to in paragraph 1, the controller shall, at the time when personal data are obtained, provide the data subject with the following further information necessary to ensure fair and transparent processing: [...] the existence of automated decision-making, including profiling, referred to in Article 22(1) and (4) and, at least in those cases, meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for the data subject.
Some of you might have read the short story Lena by qntm, which is about brain uploading and the effective enslavement of the uploaded once their humanity is hidden behind an API. That story is actually about the gig economy [1].
Of course having a dishonest Uber driver is annoying, but I think that has nothing on getting suspended or fired by an automated system.
> "Lena" presents a lush, capitalist ideal where you are a business, and all of the humanity of your workforce is abstracted away behind an API. Your people, your "employees" or "contractors" or "partners" or whatever you want to call them, cease to be perceptible to you as human. Your workers have no power whatsoever, and you no longer have to think about giving them pensions, healthcare, parental leave, vacation, weekends, evenings, lunch breaks, bathroom breaks... This is extremely realistic. This is already real. In particular, this is the gig economy. For example, if you consider how Uber works: in practical terms, the Uber drivers work for an algorithm, and the algorithm works for the executives who run Uber. There is a kind of airtight bulkhead separating the human drivers from the humans who control the algorithm. The management layer sends the drivers instructions electronically, impersonally, at immense scale, and the drivers respond using a narrow collection of APIs. This bulkhead is intentionally designed to make it impossible for these two sets of humans to actually talk to one another
35 comments
[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 30.7 ms ] threadThere's no special right for American companies to ignore our rules and when they get fined for breaking them, that's just rule of law.
Maybe there's been enough regulatory capture that big corps can ignore laws on the other side of the pond, but for now, we are still a society of law and justice.
I swear this is like a restaurant chain complaining that they shouldn't be required to follow foodservice regulations because of how much money it costs them at scale.
Anyway, if they're so large and special then they can hire a bunch of people.
The law Uber broke. I can’t believe they found it that difficult to follow something as simple as that.
Dutch Uber drivers aren’t employees [1].
[1] https://nltimes.nl/2026/01/27/uber-drivers-freelancers-emplo...
The real issue is if uber comes away from this thinking they can do a rubber stamp review, because the point of the law was clearly to stop unjustifiable decisions automatically being made(protecting both parties), as uber will still be on the hook for unjustified suspensions but redress will need to go through the court making it worse for all involved.
Uber may want to reconsider operating in the Netherlands- would be surprised if they get this much in profit from this region. Unfortunately for them these laws are EU wide.
Regardless of how Uber did it, these kind of drivers should be removed from the platform. This happened to me more than once. It’s quite frustrating as an example you want to get to airport and a driver has accepted your request, but you can see in the app the vehicle doesn’t move. One time this happened for all requests on Uber when I wanted to go to airport early morning and had to switch to Bolt
But wouldn't you want a human to be involved in this process?
Let's say you run a legitimate SaaS company, and a cloud provider suspends your account due to an allegation of fraud. Wouldn't you prefer a human is involved?
To me that seems pretty reasonable when people's livelihood is at stake.
Bolt was their hands and refereed me to the their customer agreements:
"Bolt says it is in no way responsible for performance of the transport contract between you and the transport provider."
"Their liability section goes further in Clause 6.1 says Bolt does not guarantee the quality or freedom from defects of the transport service. It says losses connected with the transport contract, including accidents, are not Bolt's responsibility."
F#%&uck Bolt, Uber and all the corrupt politicians who allow these innovative disruption "businesses"
Try getting a taxi in a country as a tourist where uber doesn’t operate and I bet 99% of the time you would get scammed or charged twice or three times as the normal cost of the ride
I've made it work for me when the legit cabs had a long wait - I offered an off meter fare and I got instant service.
I once calculated the fare using a taxi fare site and the verbal off meter rate was lower than the estimated one. I gave him the higher rate.
Off meter isn't so black or white, that said I always prefer uber or similar regional cabs.
Taxis in Da Nang, Vietnam were also nice, but there were all arranged by the hotel, so that's probably why.
The opposite experience anywhere in the US. Taxi accepting credit card still a surprise for me.
Here is the statement from the Dutch data protection authority:
Reference to the law that was broken (GDPR): [2][3] [1]: https://www.autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/actueel/uber-krijg...[2]: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/
Of course having a dishonest Uber driver is annoying, but I think that has nothing on getting suspended or fired by an automated system.
[1] https://qntm.org/uploading