Sunday, July 17, 2016

Uber ... for women? Start-ups hope to match female passengers with female drivers LA TIMES JULY 17 16


Uber ... for women? Start-ups hope to match female passengers with female drivers LA TIMES JULY 17 16



Tracey Lien
Ginny Young sat with eight women, all of them senior citizens, this spring while a focus group leader lobbed questions at them.
“Who has used Uber or Lyft before?” Young raised her hand.
“How about taxis?” A few more hands went up.
“If you booked a ride, would you prefer if the driver was a woman?” Absolutely.
“And how many of you would use a ride-hailing service where all the drivers are women?” Every hand in the room shot up.
“There was a whole group of us saying we’d feel more comfortable and more at ease with a woman driver,” said Young, 86, of Laguna Niguel. “I think it’s a great idea.”
That’s the sentiment Orange County start-up See Jane Go is banking on for its launch this fall.


The ride-hailing company, headed Kimberly Toonen, a former Apple and Cox Communications employee, plans to offer an alternative to Uber, Lyft and taxis by catering specifically to women who don’t feel comfortable getting into a car with a male stranger. In Boston, a similar ride-hailing start-up, Safeher, also plans to launch later this year with a fleet of women drivers.
The companies are among a number of start-ups popping up to serve customers that they believe the Ubers and Lyfts of the world are leaving behind: senior citizens, children and, increasingly, women. In L.A., HopSkipDrive has spent the past year signing up drivers with childcare experience to give rides to minors (Uber and Lyft don’t allow minors to ride alone). In the Bay Area, Zum offers on-demand transportation for kids, and throws in babysitting services too.
“As wonderful as ride-hailing is, we thought there may be an option for women,” said Toonen, who became See Jane Go’s chief executive in March shortly after Orange County financial advisor William Jordan proposed the idea of a women-only ride-hailing company. “William is a family man and a doting, protective father, and he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of his daughter riding in or driving with Uber or Lyft. So we asked ourselves, is there a business here?”
In the tech world, there is no shortage of companies trying to take on incumbents. Most struggle to fund-raise and grow. Others fizzle before they even launch. Some place priority on ideological positions, with their existence serving to protest the status quo – like Ello, an ad-free alternative to Facebook, or Juno, a ride-hailing firm that offers drivers equity in the company. 


Most tech experts agree that going head-to-head with Facebook or Uber will not bode well for newcomers, but upstarts like See Jane Go say zigging when industry giants zag will allow them to carve out a sustainable niche. 
Considering only 15% of Americans have used a ride-hailing service, there are still large pieces of the pie up for grabs. 
“It’s a good idea because specialization can often open up opportunities,” said Karl Brauer, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book. “If you pick a geographic area, specialize in a demographic and serve it well, it might be possible.”
But these start-ups will likely face tremendous head winds. While focus groups suggest that a ride-hailing service for women is a good idea, “the idea alone is never enough,” said Jennifer Polk, an analyst with research firm Gartner. 
“Will there be enough demand?” Polk said. “This is a niche, and I don’t mean niche as in ‘women,’ but ‘women who use ride-hailing services in these cities who are concerned enough about their safety that they would consider a female-only ride-hailing program.’ ”
Polk notes that, empirically, Uber, Lyft, and taxis aren’t unsafe. Millions of passengers — male and female — take rides daily without incident. For many women, a driver’s gender is a non-issue, and neither Uber nor Lyft have announced plans to develop gender-specific features for their apps. So will there be enough customer demand to support the start-ups?


And if there is, business experts question whether there will be enough supply.
“These companies are really disadvantaged because they have much less dense networks of cars,” said Evan Rawley, a professor at the Columbia School of Business. 
The ride-hailing business is a two-sided marketplace in which companies have to ensure there are enough drivers on the road to serve all the passengers who need rides, Rawley said. Uber and Lyft have spent years and millions of dollars balancing supply and demand, and they’ve achieved that critical mass because they’ve opened their services to everyone – not just half the population.
Smaller start-ups that have tried to achieve a similar critical mass have fallen by the wayside: Sidecar sold its assets to General Motors this year after it struggled to compete with Uber. SheRides, a New York taxi firm launched by women for women in 2014, has all but disappeared — its product is no longer available on the Apple App store, and phone calls and emails to the company went unanswered. 
"In the modern age of tech, for every business that succeeds, about 100 fail," Brauer said. "So if you've got Uber and Lyft, that means 200 other companies have already, or will, fail."
Another potential hurdle the companies face is claims of gender discrimination from men who might want to drive for the service (both See Jane Go and Safeher have features in place for men who want to ride with the service – the former will connect the customer with a third party ride-hailing company, the latter said it will transport men, but the app for male users will have different features than the women’s version. The company did not detail what these features will be).
But Elizabeth Brown, an assistant professor of business law at Bentley University, believes there’s a case to be made that gender-specific ride-hailing should be exempt from civil rights and public accommodation claims, in the same ways that single-sex gyms get a pass. Overseas, single-sex public transportation has existed for years, with women-only buses in India and train cars in Japan.
“The safety situation for riders and drivers is different from truly public spaces,” Brown said. “I think what [these companies are] doing intuitively makes sense, and there are many situations where the law just has to catch up to society, or tech, or both.”
See Jane Go has so far raised $1 million from private investors and is seeking an additional $5 million. Safeher declined to reveal how much it has fund-raised. Neither have announced a pricing structure yet, but both said fares would be competitive with other ride-hailing services. 
See Jane Go plans to launch in Orange County in the fall, before expanding to Los Angeles. Toonen estimates the company will need around 400 drivers at launch — a fraction of the 160,000 drivers Uber has in California.
When the app launches, customers will be able to decide at the time of booking what kind of ride experience they’d like – whether they are feeling chatty or would prefer to ride in silence. The company will take a 20% cut of drivers’ fares, of which 1% will go to a charity that benefits women of the driver’s choice, and another 1% of the rider’s choice.
In the end, the cost of a ride might end up being more expensive than taking Uber. The wait times could end up being longer. But for potential customers like Young, it’ll be worth it for peace of mind.
“I’m all for it,” Young said. “I would take them over a taxi any day.”
Twitter: @traceylien
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Uber battling more than 70 lawsuits in federal courts Marisa Kendall, The Mercury News july 7 16

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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KNOWLEDGE

Uber battling more than 70 lawsuits in federal courts

Marisa Kendall, The Mercury News on 
SAN FRANCISCO -- The past few months have been good to Uber -- the world's most valuable startup raised a record-breaking $3.5 billion in June and in April escaped a high-profile trial that threatened to upend its entire business model.
But as Uber celebrates those milestones, it faces an army of attackers. The ride-booking giant is spending millions fighting dozens of lawsuits over everything from the way it vets its drivers to how it advertises. Industry experts say Uber's deep pockets -- the company is worth more than $60 billion and has $11 billion in cash -- and its disruptive habit of flouting traditional industry rules as it expands around the globe make it an attractive legal target.
Uber's ultracompetitive company culture doesn't help, said New York University professor Arun Sundararajan, author of "The Sharing Economy."
"It's the personality of the early team," he said, "which is very much 'we're going to dominate the world, and we're going to ask for forgiveness rather than asking for permission.'"
And as the company puts out one fire after another in court, it's also battling unfriendly regulations in places like Austin, Texas, and struggling with criminal charges overseas.
Uber declined to comment on its legal and regulatory battles.
The company is fighting more than 70 federal lawsuits in courts across the country and has resolved at least another 60, according to a search of a national database of federal court cases. And that doesn't include actions in state courts. Uber was sued 46 times in federal court this year alone. Airbnb, the next most valuable U.S. startup, racked up six lawsuits during that time. Lyft, Uber's chief competitor, faced seven and Facebook had 27.
Uber has been hit disproportionately hard in court, but that's hardly surprising, Sundararajan said. Part of the problem is Uber's lukewarm relationship with its drivers -- which the company is trying to change with perks like its recently launched quasi union in New York City.
But the courtroom showdowns could become an issue for 6-year-old Uber as it continues fundraising, said Paul Boyd, managing partner at ClearPath Capital Partners. Even Uber, with its breakneck growth and massive war chest, isn't immune to the power a lawsuit has to taint a company's image.
"It will make investors question," Boyd said.
So far, the company hasn't faced any devastating legal losses. Uber dodged what could have been a major blow in April when it reached a settlement worth up to $100 million to resolve claims that its drivers were entitled to employee benefits such as overtime pay and reimbursement for expenses. The deal, which is awaiting approval from a San Francisco federal judge, allows the company to avoid a high-profile trial and the expense of reclassifying its drivers as employees -- a major win.
The ride-booking platform announced public settlements in at least six cases during the past year, agreeing to shell out up to $163 million. Those deals seem to represent a shift for the company, which originally made a show of fighting litigation tooth and nail, said Joshua Davis, associate dean for academic affairs at the University of San Francisco School of Law.
"One possibility is that you're seeing a kind of maturing of the company in a way," he said. "That it is going from sort of a cowboy mentality, if you will, to more of the attitude of an established company."
France in June fined Uber and two executives up to $1.1 million for criminal convictions of violating transportation and privacy laws. The charges targeted the low-cost UberPop service, which the company has had to suspend there and in several other countries throughout Europe. At home, the California Public Utilities Commission fined Uber $7.6 million in January for withholding information about its trips. And Uber has spent another $2.3 million since 2013 lobbying Congress and the state Legislature, according to OpenSecrets.org and the Secretary of State website.
That's nothing compared to the more than $8 million Uber and competitor Lyft reportedly spent fighting an Austin rule requiring drivers to undergo fingerprint background checks, only to lose a vote in May and pull their services from the city.
Uber also pays a massive in-house legal team. A LinkedIn search turned up nearly 50 members around the world, and the company's website lists 24 openings in its legal department.
Some lawsuits are backed by Uber's enemies in the taxi industry, who cry foul because Uber doesn't adhere to their regulations. Others target Uber's driver background checks -- some argue they are too lax; others claim they dig too deeply. The company also has been accused of failing to protect female passengers from being sexually assaulted by drivers, leaving driver information vulnerable to a data breach, and refusing to accommodate blind passengers' service dogs.
Despite the pending settlement for up to $100 million, the debate over whether Uber drivers should be employees or independent contractors is far from over. Lawyers have filed a string of follow-on suits, and the issue constantly crops up in seemingly unrelated cases.
It's a key factor in many of the dozen lawsuits filed by San Francisco-based lawyer Christopher Dolan -- he argues Uber should be held accountable for the misdeeds of its drivers, while Uber counters it's not to blame because the drivers are independent contractors. In one such case, an Uber driver struck and killed a 6-year-old girl in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 2013. The fights seem personal for Dolan, whose law office happens to be across the street from Uber's Market Street headquarters.
"I don't like bullies," he said. "And Uber was a bully."
Some of this litigation has the potential to do serious damage. An antitrust suit in New York, which accuses Uber of illegally fixing the prices its drivers charge instead of allowing them to compete with each other, could be worth more than $1 billion and seeks to upend Uber's pricing model, Davis said.
Depending on how the court receives the case, "Uber could be anywhere between just fine and in a whole lot of trouble," he said.
But Uber may have a secret weapon. In June a panel of federal appellate judges in the Ninth Circuit indicated it was leaning toward upholding the arbitration clause Uber has drivers sign. That could force many pending lawsuits against Uber out of court and into private arbitration, and make it difficult for drivers to bring future class actions.
Even if the lawsuits keep coming, Lux Capital partner Bilal Zuberi, who doesn't invest in Uber or its competitors, said they are unlikely to shake Uber's solid foundation.
"Lawsuits do not indicate anything fundamentally necessarily wrong with the company," he said. "They just indicate that some people are unhappy with the company's existence or with the work that the company is doing."
Uber goes to court
Uber is fighting more than 70 lawsuits in federal courts across the country, plus additional litigation in state courts. Here's a rundown of some of the key cases:
Sexual assaults -- Two women who allege they were sexually assaulted by their Uber drivers say the company's driver background check policies fail to protect riders. Uber tried unsuccessfully to get the case thrown out by arguing it's not liable for the attacks because its drivers are independent contractors, not employees.
Antitrust -- An antitrust suit filed in New York federal court claims Uber illegally fixes the prices its drivers charge, instead of letting them compete against each other as independent contractors typically do.
Taxi drivers take a stand -- Southern California-based cab company A Taxi accuses Uber of engaging in unfair business practices by flouting traditional taxi regulations.
Data breach -- Uber drivers who had their personal information stolen in a 2014 data breach say the company didn't do enough to protect them.
Stolen intellectual property -- Entrepreneur Kevin Halpern claims he's the one who came up with the idea for a mobile-phone based car service, and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick stole it.
Uber driver stabbed -- San Francisco Uber driver Abdo Ghazi, who says the company refused to reimburse him for medical expenses after he was stabbed and punched in the face by a passenger, demands that Uber reclassify its drivers as employees.
(c)2016 The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)
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Sunday, July 10, 2016

Kashmir violence: 16 die after key militant killed BBC 10 July 2016

Kashmir violence: 16 die after key militant killed BBC

  • 10 July 2016
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  • From the sectionAsia
Clashes in Srinagar, 10 JulyImage copyrightAP
Image captionClashes erupted in Srinagar on Sunday and in other areas of Indian-administered Kashmir
Clashes in Indian-administered Kashmir in the wake of the killing of a popular separatist commander have now left 16 people dead and 200 injured.
Burhan Wani, 22, who was well-known due to his prominence on social media, died in a gunfight with the Indian army on Friday.
Thousands attended his funeral on Saturday.
Divided Kashmir has been a flashpoint for India and Pakistan, triggering three wars between the nations.
Both claim the region in its entirety. A number of militant groups in Muslim-majority Indian-administered Kashmir are fighting for independence or a merger with Pakistan.
The funeral of Burhan Wani, a commander of the region's largest rebel group, Hizbul Mujahideen, was held in his hometown of Tral, about 40km (25 miles) south of Srinagar, on Saturday.
The Indian government said no police or security personnel were present at his funeral, to avoid a confrontation with the angry crowd.
Map
A curfew has been imposed, with internet and mobile phone services blocked in some areas.
However, after the funeral, police stations and military installations were attacked in violent clashes across the region.
A policeman reportedly died after protesters pushed his armoured vehicle into a river in the southern Anantnag area.
Thousands of government forces in riot gear have been deployed across the state.
The BBC's South Asia correspondent, Justin Rowlatt, says this is the worst violence in the region for some years and the fear is that if it is not brought under control soon, many more people could be killed and injured.
The level of separatist insurgency violence has ebbed and flowed since 1989, but it has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, mainly civilians.