Uber drivers are workers, UK supreme court rules

[MadImmortalMan]

Yes there is a business benefit to vetting them. It may not be strictly required but it's sure a hell of a good idea.

[Martinus]

That's true. But that does not mean that Uber has a legal responsibility to do so. I think garbon has an axe to grind against uber and he is spinning every story to their disfavour. The original story about teachers was also "meh". Making a scandal out of it was like making a scandal over that scientist guy's shirt.

And the fact that some cities are banning Uber is not really an argument against Uber, but a proof that the taxi lobby (which in many cities operates as a de facto cartel) has a lot of influence in the city hall.

[garbon]

I don't think it is fair to say that I have an axe to grind. I've never actually used Uber though thought it was a good idea as an alternative to the difficulties of hailing a cab on the street. I don't think I'm spinning any stories, just posting what outlets are putting out.

I think my opinion has soured on Uber though as it looks like they weren't really ready to go multinational what with them not really figuring out procedures for keeping customers safe and their general attitude of trying to ignore the fact that they are essentially a taxi/limo service - but are tactfully avoiding that language in an attempt to play in the grey area around regulations. If the Portland piece is accurate, they are even knowingly breaking laws. Really they just seems like a more expensive, just as "safe" alternative to a gypsy cab(/mini cab)...though maybe less so given the not so careful vetting of their drivers (whom they pay but are not employees).

And I appear to not be the only one of that thinking.

Spain And Thailand Ban Uber

The U.S.-based private taxi company was not authorized to operate in both countries. The Indian capital of New Delhi also banned Uber after one of its drivers allegedly raped a woman.

A Madrid judge banned Uber in Spain Tuesday, after a series of protests by the country's taxi associations against the San Francisco-based private cab app, El Pais reported.

The judge ordered Uber to cease all its operations in the country, accepting the measures proposed by the Madrid Taxi Association which said Uber drivers do not have official authorization to offer their services and were thereby competing unfairly with licensed taxi drivers.

El Pais reported that Uber had no license or insurance for putting passengers and drivers in touch and keeping 20% of the fare.

The judge's ruling came ahead of a court case the taxi association is planning to file against Uber.

Since Uber first began operating in Barcelona in April, taxi drivers protested against the American company deeming it unfair competition. Uber also began operating in Madrid in April and Valencia in October.

The judge took the cautionary measures without hearing Uber's arguments, El Pais reported.

Thailand also banned Uber on Tuesday following the company's ban in the Indian capital of New Delhi.

Thailand's department of transport ordered Uber to cease its operations saying that its drivers were not registered or insured to drive commercial vehicles and the company's credit card system did not comply with regulations, Al Jazeera America reported.

The ban in Spain and Thailand comes a day after New Delhi blacklisted the services of Uber in the country's capital after an Uber taxi driver allegedly raped a 25-year-old woman in the vehicle.

The New Delhi government said the company was banned for "misleading customers" by using vehicles which did not have all-India permits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/opinion/we-cant-trust-uber.html

We Can't Trust Uber

UBER, the popular car-service app that allows you to hail a cab from your smartphone, shows your assigned car as a moving dot on a map as it makes its way toward you. It's reassuring, especially as you wait on a rainy street corner.

Less reassuring, though, was the apparent threat from a senior vice president of Uber to spend "a million dollars" looking into the personal lives of journalists who wrote critically about Uber. The problem wasn't just that a representative of a powerful corporation was contemplating opposition research on reporters; the problem was that Uber already had sensitive data on journalists who used it for rides.

Buzzfeed reported that one of Uber's executives had already looked up without permission rides taken by one of its own journalists. And according to The Washington Post, the company was so lax about such sensitive data that it even allowed a job applicant to view people's rides, including those of a family member of a prominent politician. (The app is popular with members of Congress, among others.)

After the Uber executive's statements, many took note of a 2012 post on the company's blog that boasted of how Uber had tracked the rides of users who went somewhere other than home on Friday or Saturday nights, and left from the same address the next morning. It identified these "rides of glory" as potential one-night stands. (The blog post was later removed.)

Uber had just told all its users that if they were having an affair, it knew about it. Rides to Planned Parenthood? Regular rides to a cancer hospital? Interviews at a rival company? Uber knows about them, too.

Uber isn't alone. Numerous companies, from social media sites like Facebook to dating sites like OKCupid, make it their business to track what we do, whom we know and what our typical behaviors and preferences are. OKCupid unashamedly announced that it experimented on its users, sometimes matching them with incompatible dates, just to see what happened.

The data collection gets more extensive at every turn. Facebook is updating its terms of service as of Jan. 1. They state in clearer terms that Facebook will be tracking your location (unless you disable it), vacuuming up data that other people provide about you and even contacts from your phone's address book (if you sync it to your account) — important provisions many of Facebook's 1.35 billion users may not even notice when they click "accept."

We use these apps and websites because of their benefits. We discover new music, restaurants and movies; we meet new friends and reconnect with old ones; we trade goods and services. The paradox of this situation is that while we gain from digital connectivity, the accompanying invasion into our private lives makes our personal data ripe for abuse — revealing things we thought we had not even disclosed.

The retailer Target, for example, started sending coupons for baby gear to customers who, sales data told them, were likely to be pregnant. Researchers in Cambridge, England, found that merely knowing a Facebook user's likes was enough to predict attributes such as gender, race, sexual orientation, political party, potential drug use and personality traits — even if the user had shared none of that information.

Facebook says that it conducts not one but "over a thousand experiments each day," and a former Facebook data scientist recently revealed that "experiments are run on every user at some point." A 2012 study in Nature showed that a single tweak modifying an "I voted" button on Facebook increased turnout in the 2010 congressional elections by about 340,000 votes. That is enormous power.

What's rare is not the kind of analysis Uber can do with sensitive data, but that it was publicly disclosed. Because of the user backlash, companies are moving toward secrecy. That would be detrimental to the public interest.

Uber argues that it's doing only what other technology companies regularly do. That may be true but it only underlines why we need oversight mechanisms that cover all of them. Reputational penalties have not been sufficient incentives to encourage more responsible use of data and algorithms, especially because almost all the big players engage in similar behavior — and Uber has just been rewarded by its investors to the tune of $1.2 billion.

Codes of conduct developed by companies are a start, but we need information fiduciaries: independent, external bodies that oversee how data is used, backed by laws that ensure that individuals can see, correct and opt out of data collection. The European Union has established strict controls on personal data that include provisions of privacy, limited and legitimate use and user access to their own data. That shows that accountability is possible.

We already regulate sensitive data, ranging from health records to financial information. We must update oversight for 21st-century data as well. When we're picked up on a rainy street corner, it's not enough to know where the car is going. We need to know where our data is going, and how it's used.

[CountDeMoney]

to the difficulties of hailing a cab on the street.

That's just being black in New York, though.

[garbon]

to the difficulties of hailing a cab on the street.

That's just being black in New York, though.

That was part of the trailer I saw for Chris Rock's movie.

http://youtu.be/wJ0Qhbm3Xj8?t=2m3s

[celedhring]

Banned in Spain today, pending trial.

[Ideologue]

Banned in Spain today, pending trial.

Top Five?

[Admiral Yi]

Countries with strong taxi lobbies.

[MadImmortalMan]

Countries with strong taxi lobbies.

Yes. Taxis are maybe the most monopolized business I can think of. Not the last priveliged class Uber will be challenging though I think.

[celedhring]

I think there's a happy medium between entrenched cartels and unlicensed and uninsured commercial drivers.

[garbon]

I think there's a happy medium between entrenched cartels and unlicensed and uninsured commercial drivers.

[Admiral Yi]

I think there's a happy medium between entrenched cartels and unlicensed and uninsured commercial drivers.

Uber drivers all presumably have a drivers' license.  Would you like some licensing requirement on top of that?  If so, what kind and why?

[CountDeMoney]

to the difficulties of hailing a cab on the street.

That's just being black in New York, though.

That was part of the trailer I saw for Chris Rock's movie.

http://youtu.be/wJ0Qhbm3Xj8?t=2m3s

Can't find it anywhere on the web, but there was a great sequence on TV Nation once, where a homeless guy was getting more cabs than Yaphet Kotto on the upper west side, whether in a suit, carrying a baby or holding a signs that said "Yaphet Kotto, Famous Actor".  Then they dressed up the homeless dude as a clown, and the cabs were still passing Kotto. 

[celedhring]

I think there's a happy medium between entrenched cartels and unlicensed and uninsured commercial drivers.

Uber drivers all presumably have a drivers' license.  Would you like some licensing requirement on top of that?  If so, what kind and why?

Taxi licenses are bullshit and I'd happily do away with them. They only exist to keep taxi supply down and thus protect the incumbents. It also hurts people wanting to become a cab driver - they have to pay such an astronomical fee to purchase a license from another driver that they can barely make a living despite all the market protection.

However, besides taxi licenses, In Spain in order to be a commercial driver you need a commercial driving license, a regular one won't do. This license is harder to obtain than a regular one but open to everybody who wishes to try to get it, and it's meant to ensure a higher level of proficiency and safety among commercial drivers. You also need bigger insurance coverage than if you're a private driver. I would want Uber drivers to be forced to get both of those; there's got to be a higher bar if you want to make driving your business - your consumers are putting their safety in your hands.

[Jacob]

Uber drivers all presumably have a drivers' license.  Would you like some licensing requirement on top of that?  If so, what kind and why?

Some sort of training to deal with emergencies would probably be appropriate, as would carrying relevant insurance.