Uber has had a controversial history since its founding in 2009, from violent conflicts among drivers to a secret software allegedly used to evade law enforcement. Now, a leak of over 124,000 documents dubbed the Uber files shows the extent to which the firm under co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick capitalised on that chaos… Read more »
The gig economy is in trouble. Rideshare drivers are cancelling in droves. Wait times for food delivery are ballooning out and driver shortages are leading to food waste. So, what’s going on? To find out more, I interviewed 30 Melbourne gig workers who worked as rideshare drivers, food deliverers or for task-based platforms such as… Read more »
Uber’s strategy was clear from the outset: move quickly into markets, operate with dubious legality, create a critical mass of demand, and deal with the consequences later. Now a trove of over 124,000 internal files from Uber – including messages between executives and internal briefing notes – has revealed the scope of the company’s market… Read more »
Uber Australia has struck a historic agreement with the Transport Workers’ Union – a statement of principles that re-regulate work in the Australian rideshare and food delivery industry. This is a major shift to industrial relations in the gig economy. Uber and its rival platforms have largely treated their workforce as independent contractors, not employees… Read more »
A landmark decision by the NSW government disputes resolution body, the Personal Injury Commission, with see the family of a food delivery rider killed in a traffic accident in 2020 receive $830,000 in compensation after food company and its insurer accepted liability for his death. Xiaojun Chen, 43, died in September 2020 after his bike… Read more »
Whether you’re just stepping into Web3, or you’ve been busy paving roads for a while now, there’s no denying that it’s a vast and often confusing place to be. “We are literally rethinking everything from the ground up,” Colette Grgic, Head of Startup Ecosystem, AU & NZ for AWS said at the recent Startups in… Read more »
Twitter pugilist Elon Musk has a new war to fight on the micro-blogging site he’s buying. After ordering his executives back into the office for a “minimum” of 40 hours a week via email, Musk followed up with an all staff email saying “If you don’t show up, we’ll assume you’ve resigned”. Taking a dig… Read more »
Elon Musk’s US$44 billion offer to buy Twitter and turn the social media platform into a private company is almost a done deal. But not quite. While Twitter’s board has endorsed his offer, Musk now needs the nod from a majority of Twitter’s shareholders and US corporate regulators. Before we get on to the details… Read more »
Ridesharing company Uber has admitted it misled customers when it warned them of additional fees for cancelling trips and has agreed to wear a $26 million fine following action by consumer watchdog the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission. Uber has admitted that it breached the Australian Consumer Law by making false or misleading statements in… Read more »
Hotel comparison site Trivago has been hit with $44.7 million in penalties by the Federal Court, misleading representations about hotel room rates on its website and in television advertising, in proceedings brought by the ACCC. The fine brings to an end a four-year legal battle against the Nasdaq-listed German tech company, launched by consumer watchdog the… Read more »
An estimated 400 Atlassian customers have had access cut for up to a week in an ongoing problem the company has blamed on a maintenance script. The incident first occurred around April 5, with the company acknowledging the problem on Twitter two days later. While running a maintenance script, a small number of sites were… Read more »
There’s no doubt that online dating and dating apps have transformed the way we initiate, form and end romantic relationships. We might also question whether the convenience of these apps has encouraged us to behave differently than we would in “real life”. More specifically, do mobile dating apps breed bad or antisocial behaviour? If you… Read more »
Rideshare and taxi users in NSW will be slugged with an ongoing $1 surcharge as part of a whopping $1 billion compensation package for the taxi industry being considered by the NSW government, more than six years after Uber was legalised in the state. When rideshare was legalised in late 2015, the then-Baird government announced… Read more »
When the News Media Bargaining Code was introduced by the federal government last year, forcing Facebook and Google to pay media companies for news, it was hailed as a game changer for the industry. Twelve months on, the game has changed, but tech giants Google and Facebook have created a more skewed playing field for… Read more »
On the last day of his 11 years as chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Rod Sims announced the commission is bringing a “world-first” claim against Meta (owner of Facebook) in the Federal Court for false or misleading conduct. The ACCC alleges Meta failed to take sufficient steps to stop displaying scam… Read more »
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Smart hotels get even smarter: 72 Byte to launch in Australia with AI expert backing 
Eucalyptus head of growth Matt Rossi departs to launch his own marketing startup, Oodle 
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