In a ruling by Transport for London today the ride-sharing app Uber will not be granted a new licence to operate in the capital.

The basis for the decision was concerns around passenger safety although Uber will be allowed to operate in the meantime. Nonetheless share prices still opened 82¢ down after the weekend as the company comes under more pressure from regulators and rival firms.

However the aim of this newsletter is not to discuss this decision on its own but the wider context of large technology companies and their impact on the social architecture of our cities.

Uber has one of the mot interesting origin stories as the company was getting started; detailed in the recent book Super Pumped by Mike Isaac. When Uber first attempted to get a foothold in cities one of the most significant obstacles tended to be city officials who would seek to enforce regulations that supported traditional taxi cab firms. The response from Uber was a piece of software called Greyball that identified government users who were trying to order a ride and then proceeded to mess them around by pretending a car was on its way before the fake Uber cancelled. By the time a New York Times investigation lifted the lid on the scheme Uber was already a global force operating in a vast array of cities.

The point is that the law and law enforcement were powerless in this situation and in the meantime the way that we think about getting around cities has changed forever. Tech firms will always be able to manoeuvre much more effectively than legislators and as boundaries are pushed it will become up to the law to react swiftly while continuing to protect civil liberties.

Ride-hailing services are not the only ones who seem to be a law unto themselves. As we get closer to the time of the election companies like Facebook and Twitter will be under greater scrutiny as they attempt to protect against undue influence on the polls. By the time that we have lawmakers to address the same issue it will already be too late.