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Black-Owned Ride-Sharing App Aims To Fill Void Left By Uber, Lyft

One black entrepreneur is throwing his hat into the multi-billion dollar ride-sharing app ring.

Moovn, which first launched in Seattle in 2015, allows users to schedule rides up to a month in advance from either their phone or computer and guarantees no surge pricing. The app, created by Godwin Gabriel, currently operates in seven cities in the United States, including New York City, Atlanta and San Fransisco. It’s also available in select cities in sub-Saharan Africa. Users also have the option to choose from local vehicle options ― like bikes ― available, especially in developing countries.

Gabriel, who is a self-taught coder and developer, told Urban Geekz that Moovn is different from other ride-sharing apps already on the market because it aims to take the industry to cities bigger companies have overlooked. The app is already available in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya and Gabriel’s hometown of Dar-es-salaam, Tanzania.

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Uber Vows To Repay NYC Drivers ‘Tens Of Millions’ After Tax Snafu

Uber says it will reimburse its New York City drivers “tens of millions” of dollars in lost earnings for miscalculating its commission there for several years.

The ride-hailing company said it had inadvertently calculated its commission since November 2014 based on drivers’ “gross” fares ― before taxes and fees are taken out. Instead, it should have collected a percent of the smaller, post-tax “net” fare.

Uber said it realized the error last Friday, after it revamped how it shows drivers their earnings and discovered their commissions violated the terms of service.

The company told HuffPost it would refund drivers’ backpay they’re due, plus 9 percent interest. The average driver should receive around $900.

“We are committed to paying every driver every penny they are owed – plus interest – as quickly as possible,” said Rachel Holt, Regional General Manager, US & Canada, in an emailed statement. “We are working hard to regain driver trust, and that means being transparent, sticking to our word, and making the Uber experience better from end to end.”

But New York’s Independent Drivers Guild said the news is just one more sign of an industry in need of regulation.

“Uber’s theft of drivers’ hard-earned wages is the latest in a long history of underhanded tactics in this industry,” IDG founder Jim Conigliaro Jr. told HuffPost in an emailed statement.  “Year after year, companies like Uber, Lyft, Juno and Gett become more valuable and year after year they find new ways to take advantage of hard-working drivers,” he added. “This is exactly why we have been calling for industry-wide pay protections to stop the exploitation of New York’s drivers once and for all.”

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Elon Musk says all Superchargers will run on solar and battery power

Uber President Jeff Jones abruptly quit the ride-hailing company on Sunday. Recode, which broke the news, reported that Jones’ resignation was directly related to Uber’s recent pileup of controversies that included a culture of rampant sexism and harassment.

Jones’ tenure with the tech company lasted just six months: He left his role as chief marketing officer for Target in August 2016 to become Uber’s president. Recode, citing unnamed sources within the company, characterized Jones as a conflict-averse leader who determined that Uber’s problems were bigger than he had realized

“It is now clear, however, that the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber,” Jones said in a statement to Recode.

Uber co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick confirmed Jones’ departure in an email to employees on Sunday:

The past month and a half have been particularly bruising for the company’s image.

Kalanick was recently caught on a dashcam video chewing out one of his own drivers and bragging about the company’s hard-nosed culture. The embarrassing video prompted the 40-year-old to release a statement saying, “I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up.”

Kalanick’s behavior made headlines just days after Susan Fowler, a former engineer, penned an explosive viral blog post about her year working with the company. Fowler described Uber’s workplace as a sexist, aggressive culture where her complaints of being sexually harassed by her manager were met with indifference by the human resources department and retribution by upper management.

The post prompted Uber’s early investors to call on Kalanick to change what they said was the company’s “destructive culture.”

Around the same time, the company was also contending with drivers angry over various workplace and compensation issues ― and received little relief following a public and disastrous Q&A that Jones led via Facebook.

Prior to that, Uber endured the first of two #DeleteUber campaigns after users protested the company. The company deliberately turned off surge pricing during a taxi strike at major airports around the country. Taxi drivers were striking in solidarity with the thousands of protesters who had gathered to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration ban.

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Uber Has A Secret Program Called ‘Greyball’ It Uses To Evade Police

For years, Uber used a secretive software tool known internally as “Greyball” to identify and steer its drivers clear of potential threats ― including law enforcement officers hoping to catch Uber operating in their cities illegally.

UPDATE: March 9 ― Uber chief security officer Joe Sullivan announced late Wednesday that the company is reviewing its use of “greyballing” technology and “expressly prohibiting its use to target action by local regulators going forward.”

Earlier:

According to The New York Times, which first reported the story, the company deployed the software in cities that deemed the ride-hailing service illegal or otherwise tried to slow the company’s rapid expansion.

The Times reports that Uber’s software clues into a number of signs from prospective riders to determine whether they might pose a threat to the company or its drivers, notably in the form of enforcement officers trying to catch Uber operating illegally.

This includes the rider’s behavior using the app itself, such as the phone type, and patterns in the frequency of its use. Another clear tell: interacting with the app in close proximity to police stations and other government buildings.

In 2014, for instance, officials in Portland, Oregon, sued Uber for operating in the city illegally, and promised to hit every driver caught working for the service with a fine of up to $3,750.

The threat accomplished little, as Uber continued operating anyway. Portland officers pushed forward with sting operations in an attempt to catch the unlicensed operators, yet were stymied as drivers repeatedly canceled their rides, as this 2014 video by The Oregonian demonstrates:

“There were two drivers that were available at one point in time, and they both canceled on me,” Portland Code Enforcement Officer Erich England comments in the video, giving a perplexed shrug. “Now there are no drivers available.”

Portland Commissioner Dan Saltzman acknowledged the city’s relationship with Uber was “pretty tumultuous” in 2014, but he told The Huffington Post that doesn’t excuse the company’s behavior.

“I’m appalled that Uber would direct its employees to work on developing software to deliberately thwart the efforts of Portland, and no doubt other cities,” Saltzman told HuffPost. He characterized the city’s regulatory efforts as dedicated to “the safety and wellbeing of our citizens and our tourists.”

Portland and Uber smoothed over their relationship in 2015, but Saltzman said the city would consider levying fines or banning the company (again), should it run afoul of regulations.