Rideshare Rodeo Podcast #14 | Lyft Store, Rideshare Lawsuits, & Gig Worker Data

Uber Lyft Drivers & Gig workers news:

Uber Lyft Drivers & Gig workers weekly news:  This week we discuss Lyft selling drivers overpriced PPE and their Junk driver to passenger partitions, Gett is coming to North America Rideshare, Instacart Sues Uber Cornerstore, U.K. Final Supreme Court Appeals regarding Uber employee status coming in September, Uber and Lyft are being sued for breaking copy-write over how their platforms operate, U.K. Unions and Mini Cab suing Uber over how their algorithm works, will Pandemic Unemployment Assistance continue?  

 News links from this weeks podcast:

1. Lyft announced Friday that it’s going to provide thousands of plastic partitions to drivers to put between the front and back seats. The company said the idea is to better protect drivers from the spread of the novel coronavirus. Frequent drivers in select cities will get the partitions for free, while other drivers will have to buy the barriers through Lyft’s online shop… [read full article]
2. Lyft unveiled an online store last week to provide drivers with safety gear to better protect themselves during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Drivers pay for the equipment… [read full article]
3. Ride-hailing app Gett announced Tuesday that it’s raised another $100 million from investors, bringing total funding in the company up to more than $750 million… [read full article]
4. Rival ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft united to fight AB5, California’s gig-work law that could force them to turn their drivers into employees. Now Uber wants to go its own way in its legal battle with California, which sued both companies in May to challenge their classification of drivers as independent contractors… [read full article]
5. Uber said Thursday it has acquired Routematch, an Atlanta-based company that provides software to transit agencies as the ride-hailing company looks to offer more SaaS-related services to cities.  Uber did not share terms of the deal. However, it doesn’t appear to be a minor “acqui-hire,” in which a company is purchased to land a few talented employees. Instead, Uber is making a strategic acquisition for a company that has developed software used by more than 500 transit agencies… [read full article]
6. Uber has been quietly helping health officials around the world with contact tracing, the company told Reuters.  The ride-sharing company has built a special portal for health officials to request access to rider and driver data. Uber has provided user data to officials before, for example with police departments investigating a crime… [read full article]
7. Instacart is suing Uber’s new grocery delivery service Cornershop for allegedly stealing thousands of catalog product images, descriptions and pricing data.  The San Francisco-based grocery delivery company filed the lawsuit in Texas last week against Uber’s newly acquired rival service.  Instacart has accused Cornershop of stealing their grocery catolog and allegedly passing it off as their own as it launched in the United States… [read full article]
8. Lyft and Uber were sued on Friday in the Western District of Texas for patent infringement relating to their respective websites and apps by allegedly using a patented method to connect drivers looking for opportunities with riders.  Plaintiff GreatGigz Solutions is the assigned owner of the following patents-in-suit: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,662,194 (the ’194 Patent); 7,490,086; 9,760,864; and 10,096,000… [read full article]
9. Uber Technologies Inc. is bracing for a long summer of legal battles that could see the end of its reign in London and entitle its drivers to a long list of workers’ rights.  A dispute over whether its drivers should continue to be classified as self-employed begins Tuesday at the U.K.’s Supreme Court. In a second legal clash scheduled for September, Uber will appeal the loss of its operating license in the capital, its biggest European market… [read full article]
10. Minicab drivers will launch a legal bid to uncover secret computer algorithms used by Uber to manage their work in a test case that could increase transparency for millions of gig economy workers across Europe… [read full article]
11. Autonomy.jobs:  get all your Gig worker data from all platforms and use the tools to find the best times to work what platform in your market, average pay, your average pay, copy of all you gig data, etc. — all for FREE!

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