Latest Sharing Economy Headlines
All the headlines from our Sharing Economy Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Former Google Engineer Charged in Uber Autonomous Theft Case
Aug 29 2019 // A former Google engineer was charged Tuesday with stealing self-driving car technology from the company shortly before he joined Uber’s efforts to catch up in the high-stakes race to build robotic vehicles. The...
Airbnb Settles Racial Discrimination Suit Brought by Oregon Women
Aug 19 2019 // Airbnb has settled a lawsuit brought by several Oregon women who said the site allowed vacation rental owners to discriminate against customers based on race. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports African American plaintiffs...
Female Customers Sue Lyft Alleging Sexual Assaults by Drivers
Aug 13 2019 // Lyft Inc.’s image as the “woke” ride-hailing company faces a new challenge from a rash of lawsuits filed by women who claim they were sexually assaulted by drivers summoned to take them home after...
Rideshare Driver Suspected of Raping Passenger Near San Francisco
Aug 13 2019 // Police have arrested a Lyft driver on suspicion of raping a female passenger in the San Francisco Bay Area. San Bruno police say the 25-year-old victim told investigators she scheduled the ride early Saturday while...
Union Not Siding with Rideshare Operators on California Labor Law
Jul 26 2019 // Uber and Lyft suffered a setback in their months-long fight against rules that could force them to reclassify California drivers as employees. The ridesharing companies, along with other businesses that depend on...
Lyft Vows to Make Driverless Data Public
Jul 25 2019 // Lyft Inc. is making research data on self-driving technology available to the public in a bid to accelerate the development of robotic cars, which is seen as critical to the ride-hailing giant’s future...
London’s Uber Drivers Sue City’s Mayor for ‘Discriminatory’ New Levy
Jul 12 2019 // London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s decision to charge Uber Technologies Inc. drivers to operate in the city center amounts to racial discrimination and puts some out of business, lawyers for the drivers said Wednesday in...
Ridehailing Blamed for Rise in Traffic Congestion, Deaths
Jul 9 2019 // Blame Uber. While the era of app-based ridehailing services, such as Uber and Lyft, has been credited with everything from keeping impaired drivers off the road to increasing job opportunities to adding new levels of...
Paying Gig Workers Emerges as ‘Getaround’ Tactic to Defeat Employee Lawsuits
Jul 2 2019 // The perennial issue in the gig economy is whether workers should be classified as employees. Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft Inc. and other companies that rely on contract work have dealt with this question in a number of...
North Carolina House Approves Safety Rules for Ridesharing Companies
Jul 1 2019 // New rules for drivers of ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft operating in North Carolina have cleared the state House. The bill approved unanimously on Thursday is considered a safety measure following the March death...
New York City Uber Driver Gets Three Years for Kidnapping Sleeping Passenger
Jun 26 2019 // A man who drove for Uber in New York City has been sentenced to three years in federal prison for abducting a woman who fell asleep inside his vehicle. A judge Monday also ordered Harbir Parmar to pay more than $3,600 in...
D&O Insurance Costs Soar as Investors Run to Court Over IPOs
Jun 18 2019 // Companies going public in the United States face insurance costs that have increased as much as 200% in the last three years to cover their executives against lawsuits alleging they misled investors. A rise in securities...
Uber, Lyft Appeal for Deal on Driver Status as Independent Contractors
Jun 14 2019 // Faced with legislation in California that endangers their business model, Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. are urging a compromise that would keep their drivers from being considered employees. “We can make...
Louisiana Senate Passes Statewide Rules for Ride-Hailing Services
Jun 3 2019 // Efforts to enact statewide Louisiana regulations for ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, aimed at expanding the services’ availability around the state, won passage Saturday in the Senate, after two years of...
Report Says Many New York City Uber, Lyft Drivers Fail to Respond to Recalls
May 23 2019 // One out of six Uber and Lyft drivers in the New York City and Seattle areas are driving vehicles with outstanding recalls, according to Consumer Reports. But taking a taxi or limousine isn’t necessarily a safer...
‘Phone Becomes Car’ as Ride-Hailing Services Promote Vehicle Sharing Over Ownership
May 23 2019 // Ride-hailing apps like those of Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. are expected to alter the state of car ownership towards subscription-based services and shared ownership, auto industry experts said at a conference on...
Court Approves San Francisco’s Uber-Nuisance Probe
May 20 2019 // Uber Technologies Inc. was ordered to turn over to the city of San Francisco data about how many of its drivers are responsible for illegal parking, traffic congestion and safety hazards. A California appeals court...
National Labor Board Memo Says Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees
May 15 2019 // Drivers for ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc. are independent contractors and not employees, the general counsel of a U.S. labor agency has concluded, in an advisory memo that is likely to carry significant...
South Carolina Passes Ridesharing Safety Bill Prompted by College Student’s Murder
May 13 2019 // Legislators passed a ridesharing safety act that requires those services to display their license plate numbers on the front of their vehicles. The bill requires ridesharing drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft to...
Uber May Rethink Litigation Avoidance Plan as 60,000 Drivers File Arbitration Demands
May 8 2019 // For Uber Technologies Inc., using legal arbitration to deal with driver compensation complaints — over anything from pay to overtime to mileage reimbursement — seemed like the smart play: it would preclude...
