Is Uber liable? A platform perspective
On the 27th of September the San Francisco Chronicle was the first to report on an assault that weekend by an Uber driver on one of his passengers. The authorities reported that the driver allegedly fractured the passenger’s skull after an argument about the car route. In subsequent days the physical condition of the passenger deteriorated, and he risks losing one of his eyes Uber responded to this incident, and subsequent investigation, by immediately suspending the driver and cooperating with the authorities. In a later statement an spokeswoman for the company declared that safety is Uber’s “number one priority” and that Uber takes “reports like this seriously and [is] treating the matter with the utmost urgency and care.” However, this is only the latest in a number of incidents between Uber drivers and passengers. A notorious case is former Uber driver Daveea Whitmire, a formerly convicted felon, who was also charged with assault. These incidents have sparked discussions with regards to if Uber is in some way liable for these serious cases. This is an interesting debate, since it fits needlessly into the area of platforms and networks discussed in recent lectures.
As you may be aware, Uber is a ridesharing service. The company uses a Smartphone application to connect customers with drivers of vehicles. For this case the company sees itself as only being a mediator between these groups, or in short a technology company, not a transportation company. It claims it is not liable for any circumstance where you experience discomfort or more serious harm from their service. This can be traced back to their terms of service which stipulates that “you expressly waive and release the company from any and all liability, claims or damages arising from or in any way related to the third party transportation provider”. But can this defense hold, or is Uber more than just a mediator. Can people expect their real world service from a Smartphone application.
Normally, internet platforms such as Ebay or MySpace are legally protected from the activities that involve the different users offline. For instance Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act offers immunity to providers for the information they publish that is provided by others. As a result, Ebay is not liable if the signed picture of Steve Jobs you purchased, was actually forged by Stephen Jobs from Nottingham. It is also the same rule of law that Airbnb has successfully applied to protect itself from claims when guests vandalize homes. Uber argues that this legislation also applies to them, since as previously mentioned, they deem the company as a mediating technology company. However, as Eric Goldman a law professor points out, they appear to show more features of a retailer than an online platform. Passengers are not really free to pick the Uber drivers themselves, as it is partly dependent on geography. Furthermore, Uber largely controls the prices that the driver charge. Combining this with the components of a platform defined in relevant literature, such as Eisenmann et al, 2008, it might be possible to defend such a position. Perhaps Uber does share more characteristics with Amazon than with Ebay, which can have significant implications for their liability. “Real” taxi companies have been held responsible for the actions of their drivers, and have often used insurance policies to pay claimants. Obviously, these insurance costs put them on a competitive disadvantage compared to Uber, as long as they are not liable in any way .so far Uber has been able to escape significant liability, as judges have often ruled the drivers as being individual contractors, not employees. However, this new incident can impact such rulings.
So what does the world of business think? Is Uber only a mediator, or should they be held liable similar to other private transportation companies
Sources:
http://www.realestatelegalupdate.com/tags/airbnb/
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Uber-driver-accused-of-hammer-attack-on-San-5783495.php
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/09/30/uber-driver-hammer-attack-liability/
(Investigative) Power to the People! Crowd funded journalism
Journalists have not had their most optimistic decades . Dubbed “America’s fastest shrinking Industry”, the newspaper industry has seen ad revenue halve since the year 2005. Similarly, the newsroom workforce has been reduced by over 20%. The often mentioned cause for this drastic downturn is the internet. It has changed the way people find information, and maybe more importantly the way information finds people. Newspapers have acted on this revolution by offering their content online, and after initial struggles many have find a membership model that suits their customers. However, a major problem has been largely unsolved; the impact of this reduced newsroom staff on the quality of journalism, and in particular investigative journalism.
Investigative journalism is a type of journalism where one subject or topic is deeply researched. A journalist may spend months or years working on just one of these articles. It can be considered of vital importance for the accountability of both company and government, as its most famous example the Watergate scandal showed. However, such extensive research requires a lot of resources, which is the object that newspaper currently lack. Furthermore, now margins have shrunk to dramatic lows, the desires of advertisers have become central. They do not necessarily want accountability, and as a result investigative journalism has largely disappeared as a priority for traditional media. Does this mean that investigative journalism an art that will continue to lose its resources?
Not if some start ups, such as Yournalism can help it. They have reassessed the journalism business model, and have found a revenue model away from the traditional advertisers. Yournalism believes that the necessary resource can come from the famous crowd. Crowd funding has seen a large increase in interest in the last couple of years, and can be used for a wide array of financing such as movies and books. This increased popularity of crowd funding can for instance be seen in the huge number of blog posts describing one of the various new iterations possible with this method of financing. But how can investigative journalism be funded by the crowd? As mentioned above I will take the example of Yournalism, which is a recently launched (30th of September) Dutch start-up by former Volkskrant employees. On their website various research topics have been posted, such as whether the European Medicine Authority is cooperating with the pharmaceutical industry. When a certain research question reaches the target of €3000, a freelance journalist attached to this question will be able to start working. Besides funding, the crowd can contribute by submitting research topics or offering research tips. Yournalism believes that this platform is the perfect match between information that the crowd wants, and the impartial research that is lost in today’s media conglomerates.
But what do you believe? Do you think that the crowd can fund this type of journalism? The cynic in me would question the actual impact of crowd funded journalism. Isn’t the point of investigative journalism to uncover the stories that people do not even know exist yet. Furthermore, would prepaying the journalist not negatively impact his/her desire to do extensive research, and thus the overall quality?
Sources:
http://www.ftm.nl/exclusive/yournalism-de-waakhond-wakker/
http://www.journalism.org/2014/03/26/the-growth-in-digital-reporting/newspaper-newsroom-workforce-continues-to-drop/
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3eef0bc4-6f73-11e1-9c57-00144feab49a.html
http://yournalism.nl/
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