Uber’s Hassles Continue, Now Banned from Operating in Brussels

Since its founding a couple of years ago, Uber’s proven itself to offer a pretty reliable service, and a convenient one at that. In fact, I’m betting that some would consider it to be invaluable. It sure beats trying to hail a cab, or talking to a dispatcher who clearly doesn’t care about their job, just to be tossed into a queue.

Still, sometimes a government can disagree with consumer opinion; such is the case of what we’re seeing go down in Brussels. Last week, courts there barred Uber from operating in its city. Non-compliance will result in a huge €10,000 fine each time the company is caught transporting a passenger. Up to this point, much of Europe has been less-than-enthused by Uber, so this really comes as little surprise.

According to the original report, transcribed by site Tech.eu, Uber presents “unfair market competition” with it services. In comparison to regular taxi services, Uber does offer a much more attractive design – but “unfair”? I’m stuck on that. Whenever I hear of cases like this, I am just led to believe that taxi companies the world over are upset that they didn’t (or simply don’t want to) jump on the mobile bandwagon, and they are now fearing for their existence. Uber is generally more attractive to people, and that of course is going to threaten the competition.

That said, the entire situation is bizarre, and seems to be lacking details. Brussels’ biggest complaint is that Uber doesn’t have proper taxi licenses, but at the same time, it seems all communications between Uber and the Brussels courts have been cut off. Then we have to consider that two very different complaints are being made. On one hand, we have Brussels saying that Uber presents unfair competition, and on the other hand, it’s all about Uber lacking a license.

See? Confusing. Either way, all we can do is hope that more governments will respect this kind of business, because at this point, any fighting against it really does seem to be an attempt to protect traditional cabs, and nothing more.