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Uber Fired Asia Pacific Head For Secretly Collecting Data of Rape Victim

8Jun By RishabhNo Comments

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Uber Fired Asia Pacific Head For Secretly Collecting Data of Rape Victim

Ride-hailing company Uber has fired a top executive who had allegedly obtained medical records of a 26-year-old woman raped by an Uber driver in India in 2014, according to a media report. Eric Alexander, the president of business in the Asia Pacific, was fired on Tuesday, just as the company announced that it had fired 20 employees over the last few months for harassment, discrimination and inappropriate behaviour. Alexander had obtained the medical records of the woman, who was raped and assaulted by Uber driver Shiv Kumar Yadav in New Delhi in December 2014, a report in the technology news website Recode said. The report quoted sources as saying Alexander had showed the medical records to "Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Senior Vice-President Emil Michael". Further, numerous execut...

Uber Fires 20 Employees After Harassment Probe

7Jun By reutersNo Comments

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Uber Fires 20 Employees After Harassment Probe

Uber Technologies Inc said on Tuesday it fired 20 employees and was improving management training following an investigation by a law firm into sexual harassment allegations and other claims at the ride-hailing company. Uber fired the staff following a report by law firm Perkins Coie, which Uber hired to look into claims of harassment, discrimination, bullying and other employee concerns. The law firm has been working in parallel with a broader investigation by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder into company culture and practices. Perkins Coie investigated 215 staff complaints going back as far as 2012, Uber said, taking action in 58 cases and no action on 100 more. Other investigations are continuing. Of the 215 claims, Uber said 54 were related to discrimination, 47 rel...

Uber Posts $708M Loss; Finance Head Leaves

2Jun By reutersNo Comments

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Uber Posts $708M Loss; Finance Head Leaves

Uber said its head of finance is leaving, and the privately held ride-hailing company also said that its first-quarter loss narrowed substantially from the prior quarter, putting it on a path toward profitability. Head of finance Gautam Gupta is leaving in July to join another startup in San Francisco, the company said, making Gupta the latest high-profile executive to leave Uber. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news on Wednesday. Uber, which has been rocked by several high-level executive departures in the past few months as it grapples with a series of controversies, has been looking for a chief operating officer to help change its now-notorious "bro" culture. Gupta's exit sets the stage for a second major executive search, now for a chief financial officer who has pu...

Uber Will Hire Indian Techies For Its Engineering Center

31May By PriyankaNo Comments

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Uber Will Hire Indian Techies For Its Engineering Center

US-based cab aggregator Uber is hiring more techies for its engineering centres in the country as it looks to roll out more innovations from India in areas like payments, bookings and rider and driver experience. The company is also in discussion with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to enable customers pay for rides using UPI. "We are hiring rapidly. We are looking for product managers, data scientists, designers etc," Uber India Head of Engineering Apurva Dalal told reporters here. Uber has two engineering centres in India in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The teams work on areas like safety, payments, driver growth, maps, vehicle telematics and rider experience, among others. It currently has about 100 people in these two centres. Dalal, however, did not comment on ho...

Uber Fires Self-driving Car Chief at Centre of Court Case

31May By reutersNo Comments

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Uber Fires Self-driving Car Chief at Centre of Court Case

Uber Technologies Inc said on Tuesday it fired the technology whiz it had hired to lead its self-driving unit, Anthony Levandowski, after he failed to comply with a court order to hand over documents at the centre of a legal dispute between Uber and Alphabet Inc's Waymo unit. Uber had hoped Levandowski, one the most respected self-driving engineers in Silicon Valley, would help the ride services company catch up to rivals including Waymo, in the race for self-driving technology. Instead the hiring led to a court fight and the threat of criminal charges. Uber replaced him as the head of its self-driving car unit in April before finally making the decision to fire him. Levandowski formerly worked for Alphabet's Waymo self-driving division, which says he stole trade secrets by downloadi...

Mother of Uber CEO killed in California Boating Accident

28May By reutersNo Comments

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Mother of Uber CEO killed in California Boating Accident

The mother of ride-hailing firm Uber's chief executive has died in a boating accident near Fresno, California on Friday, the Fresno County Sheriff's Office said on Saturday Uber CEO Travis Kalanick's parents Bonnie Kalanick, 71, and Donald Kalanick were on Pine Flat Lake when their boat struck a rock and sank, it said, adding that an autopsy is planned for Sunday. Donald Kalanick was being treated at an area hospital for what were described as moderate injuries. Uber officials were not immediately available for comment. The sheriff's office, however, posted a statement from Uber that read: "Last night, Travis and his family suffered an unspeakable tragedy." "His mother passed away in a devastating boating accident near Fresno and his father is in serious condition. Our thoug...

Ola, Uber Rides Could Get Cheaper Under India’s GST Bill

20May By RishabhNo Comments

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Ola, Uber Rides Could Get Cheaper Under India’s GST Bill

Cab rides could get marginally cheaper for customers from July 1 as the incidence of tax will come down to five per cent for bookings made on cab aggregators like Ola and Uber. Currently, a tax of six per cent is levied on rides booked through cab aggregators. "Such reduction is a welcome move for cab aggregators and consumers considering the increased demand of services of cab aggregators," Deloitte Haskins & Sells Senior Director Saloni Roy said. It shall accordingly provide a further boost to the already thriving operations of cab aggregators, she added. The introduction of services by cab aggregators has seen manifold growth due to the ease and reasonableness of prices at which the services are offered. "The GST rate on cab aggregators is proposed to be at 5 per cent...

Uber Faces Criminal Probe Over Software Used to Evade Authorities

5May By reutersNo Comments

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Uber Faces Criminal Probe Over Software Used to Evade Authorities

The U.S. Department of Justice has begun a criminal investigation into Uber Technologies Inc's use of a software tool that helped its drivers evade local transportation regulators, two sources familiar with the situation said. Uber has acknowledged the software, known as "Greyball," helped it identify and circumvent government officials who were trying to clamp down on Uber in areas where its service had not yet been approved, such as Portland, Oregon. The company prohibited the use of Greyball for this purpose shortly after the New York Times revealed its existence in March, saying the program was created to check ride requests to prevent fraud and safeguard drivers. The Times report triggered a barrage of negative publicity for the company. The criminal probe could become a sign...

Uber Posts $2.8 Billion Loss in 2016, Revenue at $6.5 Billion

15Apr By reutersNo Comments

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Uber Posts $2.8 Billion Loss in 2016, Revenue at $6.5 Billion

Ride-hailing service Uber generated $6.5 billion in revenue last year and its gross bookings doubled to $20 billion, the company said on Friday. Its adjusted net loss was $2.8 billion, excluding the operation in China it sold last year, Uber said. As a private company, now worth $68 billion, Uber does not report its financial results publicly. It confirmed the figures in an emailed statement after Bloomberg reported the results. Uber did not provide first quarter figures, but a spokeswoman said they "seem to be in line with expectations." For the final quarter of 2016, gross bookings increased 28% from the previous quarter, to $6.9 billion. But Uber's losses grew to $991 million in the period, as revenues grew 74% to $2.9 billion from the third quarter. In a separate emailed...

8Apr By AnkitaNo Comments

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Uber Android App Banned in Italy

An Italian court has banned the use of smartphone apps for the ride-hailing group Uber, saying they contribute to traditional taxis facing unfair competition, local media reported. In a ruling that is subject to appeal, a court in Rome yesterday upheld a complaint filed by taxi unions and gave Uber ten days to end the use of various phone applications on Italian territory, along with the promotion and advertising of them. If Uber does not comply it could face a fine of 10,000 euros for each day it remains in defiance of the court. Uber said it was shocked by the ruling and that it would appeal immediately, seeking suspension of the ruling. The court's ruling follows a decision by a court in Milan two years ago to ban the company's UberPop application, which was deemed under Ita...

It’s War Against Uber, Company Will Be Profitable in 2 Years: Ola CEO

7Apr By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

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It’s War Against Uber, Company Will Be Profitable in 2 Years: Ola CEO

Indian cab aggregator Ola today said the firm is focussing on building a sustainable business and will turn profitable in two years even as it used the analogy of "Vietnam War" to describe competition with its US-based rival Uber. "...this is corporate war and the competition between us and Uber is very intense... the analogy that I gave about India is that this is like Vietnam War. "We are the local guerillas...We have the Americans carpet bombing us but we will go into the nooks and corners of the country and we will find those opportunities in niche areas and in large areas," Ola co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said at a TiE event here. He added that the Bengaluru-based company is focussing on building "more sustainable" and profitable solutions to grow its market share in ...

Uber Resumes Driverless Car Programme After Crash in Arizona

28Mar By reutersNo Comments

News, USA

Uber Resumes Driverless Car Programme After Crash in Arizona

Driverless vehicles operated by Uber Technologies Inc were back on the road in San Francisco on Monday after one of its self-driving cars crashed in Arizona, the ride-hailing company said. Uber's autonomous vehicles in Arizona and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, remained grounded but were expected to be operating again soon, according to a spokeswoman for the company, who refused to be identified. "We are resuming our development operations in San Francisco this morning," she said in an email. Uber's San Francisco program is currently in development mode. It has two cars registered with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, but is not transporting passengers. The spokeswoman said because of this, the company felt confident in putting the cars back on the road while it investig...