Spanish judge dodges the ultimate question – is Uber a taxi company?

Uber will continue to ferry food around Barcelona but not people, as yet another court case involving the ride-sharing pseudo-taxi service is sent to the European Court of Justice. Last year, Spain banned the company following complaints from traditional taxi drivers. However, now a Barcelona judge has decided to let Europe’s …

[Dan 55]

Uber gets by where there is a legal framework for minicabs. In Spain there's a legal framework for taxis but not for minicabs, they simply don't exist. Why would he need to refer it to the ECJ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> In Spain there's a legal framework for taxis but not for minicabs, they simply don't exist

That is incorrect. Minicabs fall under exactly the same regulation, being the specific licence received what states whether they can pick up passengers on the street or upon reservation only.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Uber completely supports regulation" they say. But really they mean we support regulation unless the regulation says we can't do what we want. In which case we will ignore it, do it anyway and say the regulation should be changed because we are nice and right and everyone else is wrong!

[J.G.Harston]

It's not a taxi company, it's a taxi dispatcher, just like any other taxi dispatcher, and needs a taxi dispatcher/operator's license in juristictions where a taxi dispatcher needs a license. The drivers need a driver's license, and the vehicle need a vehicle license, in juristictions where a license is needed.

[Named coward]

If the company is a taxi dispatcher, doesn't that make the drivers taxi drivers? And in that case they would need whatever license is required for taxi drivers (in jurisdictions where anything other than a normal driver's license is required by taxi drivers).

[The First Dave]

And more importantly, they need proper insurance and driver vetting schemes.

[J.G.Harston]

Yes, the drivers are taxi drivers, and need to be licensed as taxi drivers, which entails passing the vetting the taxi licensing regime has in place, and the vehicle they drive needs to be licensed as a taxi, which entails passing the vehicle vetting the vehicle licensing regime has in place and having the vehicle insured for being used as a taxi.

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly even, I wish these VC-backed mega-companies would just go away. From our experience so far, they have not exactly worked in the best interests of consumers or promoted healthy competition.

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost 30 per cent of the 15,000 Uber partners in London, for example, come from constituencies where unemployment is above 10 per cent

So poverty is more likely for people to sidestep regulation to have an income, and so endanger the customers' safety. It's seriously dodgy that they're banking on that. This is one of those instances of the Citibank Plutonomy investment models at work, this time at the low end. *Not* impressed.

[Nameless Faceless Computer User]

no thanks

UBER began to track my GPS after I closed their app. Good-bye, UBER app.

Here's an idea. Create a competing app which does the same thing as UBER's, sans the corporate spyware, and use a cooperative dispatcher which allows people to hail a "real" taxi via their electronic device.

[John Brown (no body)]

so is this...

...the Uber Spanish Inquisition? Bigger and badder than the old one?

Come on El Reg. You simple can't have a headline opportunity with all the right ingredients and NOT work the Spanish Inquisition in somehow.