Legal Things to Consider While Taxi App Development. Uber is Already Paying for its Legal Mistakes. |
Posted: July 19, 2019 |
Few misleading and funny myths associated with the business are, you are the only boss of your business. You hold all rights of how you run and how you earn form the business. No one is going to mess with the boss. However, as I have said, these are only myths. A business should care about government and government policies in order to make sure they are actually not breaching any of the legal things. Governments don’t encourage those types of companies which are entertaining fake business models and poor ways of satisfying legal terms. If we talk specifically about ridesharing companies, then Uber is one of the companies, which has evolved in so many legal troubles in different countries. These legal troubles are causing Uber to lose a pile of dollars and reputation. So many European countries, few states of the USA, Canada, and Australia have put the full ban on the Uber, and countries like Netherland and Germany have put a partial ban on the Uber. Surprisingly, City of London and Government of Italy are also thinking to ban the services of Uber, saying, Uber’s scheme of letting unprofessional drivers run the cab service is affecting the safety of the passengers and creating unnecessary disturbance in the pre-established taxi market of the countries.
Source: Business insider
Seeing the success of the Uber, so many companies and individual are jumping into the ridesharing market. They approached a mobile app development company and launch an app of their ridesharing business and fleet of cabs in the market. They are never bothered about making an app or running their online taxi business according to government norms. To make sure, they won’t trap in any legal issue, Uber’s court history is the best teacher for them. Legal Dispute 1: London government denied Uber to renew its operational license and this conflict led the Uber and London Government into a legal battle. (Case is still in the court and until the final hearing, the court allowed Uber to continue its services) This step of London government attracted the attention of other countries. Few market experts have stated that this was a very unexpected decision as London is a big market for Uber. Market is so big that 30000 to 40000 Uber drivers and 3.5 million Londoners are relying on it. Reason for this dispute is Uber’s failure to satisfy the regulation. Transport for London, a government body responsible for transport system said that Uber shows a “lack of corporate responsibility.” Government is not happy with the process Uber is fallowing for checking the background of Uber drivers. Government of London strongly believes that sexual assault by Uber drivers is happening because of the mismanaged background check. London’s Mayer, Sadiq Khan stated that All companies in London must play by the rules and high standard, particularly when it comes to the safety of people. Learning: Taxi company should have deployed a reliable driver background checking process. To win the trust of people, add the complete details of the driver’s background in the app and share the visibility of it with the users. Additionally, use different online tests through the mobile app to check the drivers’ credibility and give the certificates and badges based on that test result to the drivers. Legal Dispute 2: Uber has started its operation in Denmark in 2011. It was a big success with 2000 drivers and 300000 people using its app. But problems for the Uber has started in the year 2017 when the government found the pricing method of Uber is unfair. To solve that problem, the government passed out a rule, forcing all cabs in the country to have a taxi meter in the taxi. Uber challenged this new rule in the court and but the court released the verdict in the favor of government and Uber had to stop its services from the country. Learning: Pricing shouldn’t have hidden terms. Shows it clear in the app. And add digital taxi meter in the app itself. Digital meter will be a notable feature of a taxi app. Legal Dispute 3: Germany is the market which Uber failed to conquer. Uber has entered into the German market with its UberPop and Uberblack Services. UberPop services were allowing any civilian to use his own car as a cab. UberPop drivers didn’t need any taxi license from the government. While under UberBlack services, only professional drivers with taxi drivers can register themselves on the Uber platform. The government had the issue with the Uberpop service. A regional court argued that UberPop had violated German law by allowing unprofessional drivers to run a cab service. Thus, Governments banned the Uberpop service and even reduced the operational area of Uberblack service. Learning: Allowing any civilian to use his car for the cab service is a totally bad idea. Not only Germany, but many European countries and Japan have shown the concern related to it. Thus, always develop a business model in such a way that you only allow professional licensed taxi drivers on your platform and develop an app keeping the needs of those drivers in the mind. Legal Dispute 4: In August 2018, New-York city council has passed a bill to reduce the number of app-based ridesharing cab clogging the city. City council has also set a new limit of the minimum wage of the taxi drivers as in the neck to neck competition, New-York based taxi drivers weren’t earning well. Learning: As a taxi company, keep the control of fleet, drivers, and their duty time in your hand. Study the market demand through the admin panel’s analytic inbuilt tool of the app and deploy the cab’s fleet with the drivers who have to work not by own, but have to follow shift hours. Legal Dispute 5: India is one of the biggest markets of the Uber. But the company is facing legal problems after one of the Uber drivers harassed a female rider. Because of this incident, Uber got so many criticisms which eventually affected its reputation. Learning: Major concern of some user groups is being in the cab with the opposite gender driver or undesired driver. Thus, providing the ability to the user to chose the exact driver he or she wants for the trip is the idea which hasn’t been implemented by any ridesharing company yet. In the nutshell Running a business is always a hard task, but running an online business is harder. Since one cannot hide anything when he is doing business online, it becomes essential for them to follows the legal norms. Ridesharing through taxi app is such kind of business which has an analogy with the transportation system of the country and safety of the general public. Uber engaged in the legal troubles just because they somehow failed to deliver the core value of the business. Uber can bear that lose as it is a big company, but if you as a startup or small business owner, make some sort of legal mistakes, even unwittingly, the results can be devastating. So always play safe in the legal framework! About the Author Vishal Virani: Vishal Virani is a Founder and CEO of Coruscate Solutions, a leading taxi app development company. He enjoys writing about the vital role of mobile apps for different industries, custom web development, online marketing, and the latest technology trends.
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