Uber faces fine of nearly $1B over automated driver suspensions

In fact, Dehaye said these fines all originate with complaints made by the same group of drivers. And he’s starting a new company called StartClaims to support the litigation and other regulatory action — first against Uber and then eventually expanding to other gig economy cases, as well as related areas like adtech.

While discussing the case with Dehaye (who I’ve known casually since college), I brought up a blog post by Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, in which Gruber worried that this fine makes it “unlawful in the EU for Uber to monitor its drivers for pulling scams against customers, or just never picking riders up, leaving them stranded.”

Gruber also took issue with Verdier’s statement, arguing, “Saying that ‘a computer’ made these decisions is like saying that when a company suspends or fires a habitually late employee, that ‘the time clock’ made the decision. Managers at the company set the policies, and the devices measure employee compliance.”

Dehaye countered that Gruber “misses the point.”

“Uber is free to use humans to punish drivers who scam, but then has to take responsibility for this decision making (like ‘being an employer’, not ‘being a marketplace’),” he said.