Also, if they know something is going to damage sales if revealed, does it make sense to do it?

Why does anyone do anything? Complex reasons.

Well, the current chairman of the board is an engineer. Probably more of an engineer than the average majority of slashdotters.

Unless the part of the penalty that doesn't compensate Indian consumers and businesses is the punitive damages to assure no repeats of the behavior.

The developers know. I'd be surprised if they didn't talk.

for whatever graft and corruption on the the menu this week

I don't envy them - it must be a full-time job keeping track of it all.

They don't care - it's a number - it doesn't matter what the number relates to and it's you that pays the incorrect amount so yep - no problem.

... because when you're trying to watch YouTube on your phone whilst driving, your attention is pulled away to watch for speed cameras, traffic light cameras, road signs, the police and the driving examiner wants a bit too. How the hell are you supposed to do all those at once?

...because there's no pressure to encourage them to be anything else.

It's redundant to starty 'ridiculous and incompetent' when the context is a discussion about government.

How is that relevant for those drivers being charged for road wear in another country? Are the UK going to kick part of the collected money to these other countries?

What the UK needs is a tax on the members of government (not to be passed on to the rest of the country) which scales with the number of taxes on the books.

You're free to make games with AI - others are free to tag them - yet others are free to use the tags to inform their buying choices.

Presumably you believe in these freedoms?

What 'makes no sense' is trying to cast a 'good for you' into a 'good for everyone - for all time' or trying to go against customer desires.

They really have little choice but to turn the country into a police state when confidence that they are even human is so low.

The Boeing CEO responsible for the 737max fiasco was an engineer, not a bean counter. And the best Boeing CEO was a lawyer, not an engineer.