Techdirt. Stories filed under "denver" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "denver"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 31 Jan 2013 07:49:40 PST And... Yet Another Regulator Flips Out About Uber, Tries To Kill It Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20130130/18303421831/yet-another-regulator-flips-out-about-uber-tries-to-kill-it.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20130130/18303421831/yet-another-regulator-flips-out-about-uber-tries-to-kill-it.shtml all too well has decided to give Uber all the free Streisand Effect publicity it needs to build its reputation in the market by trying to pass legislation to shut it down. This time it's the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, which is looking to pass some new regulations that effectively make it impossible for Uber to operate its innovative car/taxi service (which is incredibly popular with users) in Denver. Of course, all this has really done is give Uber the perfect opportunity to get tons of attention for its service in Denver as it urges Uber fans to speak out against the regulatory changes.

Uber points out that the proposed changes will basically make its business model illegal in multiple ways -- saying that you can't price based on distance, effectively keeping Uber cars outside of downtown areas that taxis populate, and forbidding Uber's key relationship set up with drivers (independent partners). As Uber points out, these rules don't serve any legitimate regulatory purpose other than to prop up the taxi business model and hurt the disruptive upstart:
These rules are not designed to promote safety, nor improve quality of service. They are intended to stop innovation, protect incumbents, hurt independent drivers, and shut down Uber in Denver.
Of course, we've seen this before. In a bunch of places where Uber operates, the service faces regulatory crackdown by local regulators who seem to do a lot more to protect incumbent taxi services than they do to figure out what benefits the users the most. This gets back to that concept of corruption laundering that I've mentioned a few times. The regulations can be presented as having good intentions: they want to protect riders from getting scammed by unscrupulous drivers, and they want to make sure the market is safe and efficient. But, as with so many regulatory schemes, what can be positioned as having the best of intentions also serves a secondary purpose: to allow incumbents the ability to thrive, while blocking out competition and the impact of disruptive innovation. That seems to be the case here yet again.

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]]> regulation-2.0 http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130130/18303421831 Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:33:00 PDT Denver Post Sued Over Righthaven Connection Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110615/03055214706/denver-post-sued-over-righthaven-connection.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110615/03055214706/denver-post-sued-over-righthaven-connection.shtml lost the big lawsuit that almost certainly will knock out most of its other existing lawsuits (definitely in Nevada, though Colorado is still an open question), we now get the news that a Tea Party group targeted by Righthaven over Denver Post content isn't just countersuing Righthaven, but The Denver Post as well. A similar situation was what caused so much trouble for Righthaven in its Nevada suits. The Democratic Underground didn't just fight back against Righthaven, but dragged the newspaper, Stephens Media, back into the lawsuit as well. That resulted in the unmasking of the agreement between Stephens and Righthaven, showing that the copyright assignment was a sham -- and that Stephens Media was still very much a part of the lawsuit. Now that the same thing is happening in Denver, the same sort of agreement may come to light. Not that it seems like many other newspapers are rushing to sign up to work with Righthaven these days, but if they had any more doubt, the fact that people might sue them directly might seal the deal. In the meantime, we've finally found something that the Tea Party and Democratic Party supporters agree on: Righthaven and copyright trolling are a bad thing.

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]]> things-keep-looking-worse http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110615/03055214706 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:58:05 PDT New Denver News Startup Discovering (Again) People Aren't So Interested In Paying For News Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090417/0150574536.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090417/0150574536.shtml quite unlikely that the group would actually be able to get 50,000 people to agree to pay them $5/month by April 23rd. That was the self-appointed deadline set by the group. And, in fact, as we approach the 23rd, Romenesko alerts us that the group is is struggling to even find 10,000 people willing to subscribe. That isn't too surprising. There remain other (free) sources of news, and they're trying to get people to agree to pay for a product that doesn't even exist. The fact that they've got almost 10,000 is impressive enough. That said... while the group still clings to the idea of a subscription model, they're also saying that they'll move forward even without the necessary subscribers. Hopefully that gets them exploring more reasonable business models, because $50,000 a month from subscribers isn't going to go very far.

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]]> let's-try-this-again... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090417/0150574536 Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:21:00 PST More Problems With Redlight Cameras: Denver Not Looking At Required Data Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090124/1255283517.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090124/1255283517.shtml getting rid of its speed cameras, after realizing they did nothing to make the roads safer (and may, in fact, have done the opposite), now it's time to move on to red light cameras, which have a pretty troubling history themselves. The latest, as pointed out by Jeff Nolan, is that Denver has failed to enforce the contract it had concerning red light cameras. Specifically, part of the deal was that the contractor running the cameras would deliver data on whether or not the cameras were effective (including a potential refund of money if they were not). However, the contractor, Redflex Traffic Systems, apparently simply hasn't delivered the data. Actually, to be clear, they haven't delivered any data. It's not just that some data has been left out, but that none has been delivered.

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