Minggu, 02 Juni 2019
As Uber plans to ban low-rated passengers, here's how to avoid that - Nairametrics
Do you like to command Uber drivers to speed up during trips? Perhaps you are one of those that like to trash-talk the car-hailing service’ drivers and dump dirt after every trip because you paid for the service? Well, Uber now believes that the customers are not always right, as it plans to ban disrespectful riders.
For a long time, it has been Uber drivers that always receive low rating after every trip. This has led to the termination of partnership between the company and many drivers around the world. However, with this new plan, some customers could also get flagged by unsatisfied drivers.
Bad rating could cost you: Uber announced that passengers with the worst ratings over a period of time (which was not made known) will be denied access to all Uber services such as rides, Uber Eats food delivery, and JUMP bicycles.
It is, however, unclear if the passenger will be allowed back on the service after a period of time.
Warning signals: The company did not reveal the level of the rating required to get banned from all its services. It did say, however, that warnings will be sent to the riders, as well as tips on how to improve their rating to avoid being banned.
“While we aren’t releasing the minimum rating level, any rider at risk of deactivation will receive several notifications and opportunities to improve his or her rating.”
According to report, passengers will be judged by a minimum threshold in each city, which is related to the average customer rating in the area.
How to avoid ban: While it is unclear whether this plan will be implemented around the world in the meantime, below are some ways to avoid being banned as a rider:
- Uber users or riders need to be polite when addressing drivers.
- They are expected not to tell the driver to exceed the speed limit.
- Don’t leave trash in the car.
Note that Uber will give drivers several opportunities before being deactivated if passenger’s ratings continue to drop.
Why Uber is doing this: The new system is aimed at holding passengers accountable for their actions. There has been protest by Uber drivers who stated they are not satisfied with riders’ behaviour and in particular, with Uber‘s operating system.
While the company is yet to address the protest against Uber‘s intake from trips, the car-hailing service is working on calls to hold passengers accountable.
Uber’s Head of Safety Brand and Initiatives, Kate Parker recently wrote the following:
“Respect is a two-way street, and so is accountability. Drivers have long been expected to meet a minimum rating threshold which can vary city to city. While we expect only a small number of riders to ultimately be impacted by ratings-based deactivations, it’s the right thing to do.”
What you need to know: In 2018, Uber recorded 91 million monthly active platform consumers and 3.9 million drivers. The company also disclosed that 10 billion trips were completed worldwide with 14 million trips completed each day in 63 countries and 700+ cities.
The company will also reduce promotions after losing $1 billion in the first quarter of 2019.
The Passenger’s rating will begin in the United States and Canada.
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June 01, 2019 at 11:40PM
Google's Scrutiny by Justice Department Has Been Building - The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON—The Justice Department’s plans to investigate Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG -1.28% Google have been building over time, amid a growing public conversation about whether the government should do more to scrutinize the handful of giant tech firms that dominate the U.S. landscape.
The department’s antitrust division and the Federal Trade Commission, which share federal antitrust enforcement authority, have sent a variety of signals that they were eager to explore cutting-edge questions about how big tech is affecting the competitive landscape.
While the FTC in February announced a new task force to consider tech competition, the Justice Department has been planning its approach behind the scenes, while also holding public events to educate its staff and the public about the contours of the tech debate.
The department last July hosted a speech by Franklin Foer, author of “World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech,” a book that raises alarm bells about Google and other tech giants that have built their dominance on the collection and use of big data.
“There’s so much hanging in the balance when we talk about their size and dominance. And therefore so much is resting in your hands,” Mr. Foer told the Justice Department audience.
“It’s something we should all be thinking about,” Justice Department antitrust chief Makan Delrahim said in opening remarks during Mr. Foer’s appearance.
“ Having that 800-pound gorilla on your side is a big advantage ”
A couple of months later, the department met with a group of state attorneys general, including both Republicans and Democrats, who have raised concerns about big-tech dominance and tech-firm practices on issues like privacy. The two sides pledged to continue talking.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, said it was encouraging that the department now seems to be moving.
“Getting them to the table is going to really help accelerate the things that AGs on both sides of the aisle want to do,” Mr. Landry said. “Having that 800-pound gorilla on your side is a big advantage.”
In March, the department presented a speech by tech investor Roger McNamee, who has been deeply critical of Facebook Inc. and Google. And last month it held a public workshop exploring competition issues in advertising, including digital advertising, an issue that is likely to be a key piece of the Google probe, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Justice Department is gearing up for an antitrust probe of Google. Out of public view, it built plans for an investigation while it worked out turf issues with the FTC. The commission conducted a broad U.S. probe of Google that ended in 2013 without enforcement action; this time, the department directly asked to be the agency to conduct an investigation, and the FTC agreed, people familiar with the matter said. That allowed Justice to begin moving forward in earnest.
Google critics, including rival businesses, that had been lodging complaints with the FTC are now being sent to the Justice Department instead, the people familiar with the matter said, adding that some have been in contact with the department already and others will be soon.
News Corp , which owns The Wall Street Journal, has complained about Google’s business practices to regulators in multiple countries.
The department is aiming to explore how Google uses its dominant position in search across a broad range of its businesses and whether the company exerts its market power unfairly to squelch smaller rivals whose innovations could make them competitive threats to Google, the people said. Justice Department officials, they said, have expressed an interest in a broad range of markets, from Google’s Android smartphone operating system to its third-party digital ad business, where Google is both a giant platform for selling ads on sites across the web and a dominant conduit for marketers to purchase online ads.
Google has grown to its current size and influence largely through its dominance in online search and its ability to leverage its search function into a massive advertising business. In addition, the company’s Android smartphone operating system has become even more widely used than Apple Inc.’s , allowing it to become a powerful force in the mobile revolution. Its YouTube unit has become a huge source of online video. New ventures into self-driving vehicles, artificial intelligence and other technologies could extend Google’s dominance.
Underlying many of those concerns is the vast array of data the company compiles.
Still, there is an active debate over Google’s dominance. While critics complain that Google has too much power over users and businesses on the internet, and even over society and politics, defenders believe many of those concerns are exaggerated, and they question whether antitrust law is the best way to address them; some argue that market forces will balance the equation over time.
Despite the FTC’s handling of the prior Google probe, the Justice Department does have previous experience of its own with Google. The department’s antitrust division in 2008 effectively torpedoed a planned Google partnership with Yahoo ; the company walked away from the deal after the department indicated it would challenge the pact.
The department in 2011 allowed Google to acquire flight-data company ITA Software, though it imposed conditions on the deal.
Google critics spent the weekend trying to make sense of how the department’s next chapter with the company might unfold.
“For the good of consumers and competition on the internet, we welcome any renewed interest by U.S. regulators into Google’s anticompetitive behavior,” said Stephen Kaufer, chief executive of TripAdvisor, a travel-review website that has long complained about the company.
But others doubted that the Trump administration would circumscribe what they view as Google’s anticompetitive practices. “Holding dominant platforms accountable for anticompetitive conduct is imperative, but I don’t have a lot of faith that President Trump’s Justice Department will stand up for working people against powerful corporations like Google and Facebook,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D., R.I.), who chairs a House antitrust subcommittee.
Write to Brent Kendall at brent.kendall@wsj.com, John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com and Keach Hagey at keach.hagey@wsj.com
https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-scrutiny-by-justice-department-has-been-building-11559486464
2019-06-02 14:41:00Z
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Google Is at the Center of a Storm Brewing Over Big Tech - The New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO — Google, one of the most successful companies in history, has generally gotten its way with American regulators. That may be changing.
Politicians on the right and left are decrying the tech company’s enormous power. President Trump and other Republicans have focused on whether the company’s online search results are biased. Democrats have focused on whether the company stifles competition. And now, the Justice Department is exploring an investigation of the advertising and search firm, according to several people with knowledge of the discussions.
It is a small and preliminary step, and it could easily come to nothing. But if the agency pursues a case, it will almost certainly inspire reams of bad publicity, promote consumer distrust, sink employee morale and remind everyone that Google, with its early motto of “Don’t be evil,” held itself to standards it sometimes could not match.
A prospect that should really worry Google is a replay of the government’s case against Microsoft in the 1990s. Microsoft did not have to break itself into two, which was the government’s goal. But the company was distracted for at least a decade, which allowed space for start-ups like Google. Microsoft’s reputation took a dive.
“The damage to the monopolist’s position comes from the public airing of the facts,” said Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley lawyer who was instrumental in the case against Microsoft and has worked with companies that argue they have suffered unfair competition from Google.
Even without a formal government investigation, Google’s reputation started to fray over the weekend as politicians jumped on the news.
“It’s time to fight back,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a popular condender for the Democratic nomination for president. Senators Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, and Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, each said the scrutiny was overdue.
The White House did not respond to questions about whether the president would support an investigation by the Justice Department. But according to two people familiar with his thinking, Mr. Trump would probably welcome any action.
Mr. Trump, like many other Republicans, has repeatedly complained publicly that Google suppresses positive news about conservatives in search results. He has also criticized big tech companies like Amazon, Facebook and Twitter.
Google, whose parent company is Alphabet, declined to comment, as did representatives for the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.
Like Amazon, Apple and Facebook, Google is awash in cash, data and ambition, and increasingly controversial. The F.T.C. announced in February an antitrust task force to look at the technology field. But in an unusual move, the commission has now agreed to give oversight of Google to the Justice Department. That puts pressure on the department’s head of antitrust, Makan Delrahim, to follow through with a robust investigation.
In the past, Mr. Delrahim has said that “credible evidence” would need to exist before antitrust officials would step in. Inside the White House, broader discussions about regulating Google have not taken place, one of the people close to Mr. Trump said Saturday. But that person said that Mr. Delrahim had built up “a lot of authority” in the Trump administration, and that there would be comfort with what the agency recommends.
In exchange for the Justice Department’s claim over the antitrust issues related to Google, the F.T.C. took over antitrust oversight of Amazon, according to two people familiar with the decision.
The online retailing giant has been criticized for using its massive online sales site to edge out competitors and harm third-party sellers that use the platform to sell goods. Amazon has argued it was not a monopoly in retail and that Walmart and other companies made up a big chunk of the retail market.
The decision to divide antitrust oversight of the two tech giants was part of negotiations a few weeks ago between the agencies’ antitrust divisions. To avoid overlap, the agencies routinely negotiate to determine which one will take on merger reviews and antitrust cases.
The two people familiar with the decision said that the decision to divide responsibilities over the two companies is a nascent step toward antitrust scrutiny of Google and Amazon.
The oversight of Amazon was earlier reported by The Washington Post.
It is unclear what the F.T.C. will explore in its scrutiny of Amazon and it does not appear that the agency has started a formal investigation into the company, the two people said.
The F.T.C. is near the end of negotiations with Facebook about the size of a fine for violating a 2011 privacy settlement. It might be as high as $5 billion. Facebook faces other investigations on multiple continents as governments seek to rein in the social media site.
As Mr. Reback pointed out, it does not always take a trial to improve behavior. After two professors explained in a paper how Amazon was restricting its third-party sellers from selling their goods more cheaply on other platforms, an anti-competitive move, Mr. Blumenthal picked up on the issue. He wrote a four-page letter to the F.T.C. and the Justice Department saying he was “deeply concerned,” and Amazon quietly dropped the practice.
Mr. Reback said the Justice Department’s move was significant. “They wouldn’t open something unless they at least thought there was smoke,” he said.
That view was challenged by Barry Lynn, director of the Open Markets Institute, a Washington think tank that has played a leading role in raising antitrust concerns.
“Until we see what they intend to do, none of this means anything,” Mr. Lynn said. “Maybe they are simply blowing smoke so the president gets happy for a moment so they can go back to doing nothing.”
The F.T.C.’s highest-profile technology antitrust case in the past decade involved Google. In 2011, the commission opened an investigation into whether the company ranked the search results of competing shopping, travel and reviews sites unfairly low. It closed the investigation in 2013 in a unanimous vote of the five-member commission that left Google largely unscathed outside of some minor voluntary commitments.
In 2015, The Wall Street Journal obtained the original F.T.C. staff report, which was much more critical than what was publicly revealed at the time. Google’s “conduct has resulted — and will result — in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets,” the report concluded.
Consumer groups have chastised the F.T.C. decision as a failure of American antitrust enforcement that set the pace for tech giants to grow into monopolies. Google, Facebook and Amazon control the online advertising market, and Google has grown from $38 billion in revenue in 2011 to $136 billion last year.
Since the F.T.C. investigation closed, the complaints against Google have expanded. Competitors that have complained to American regulators include Yelp, the consumer review site, and travel sites like TripAdvisor.
European regulators have accused Google of abusing its dominance in the smartphone industry with its Android operating system, which is used in 80 percent of the world’s smartphones. In July, European regulators fined Google $5.1 billion for automatically installing its search engine and other apps on Android phones.
Sundar Pichai, the company’s chief executive, has rebutted allegations of antitrust violations, as well as the accusations of biased results. After the European decision, he said on Twitter that “rapid innovation, wide choice, and falling prices are classic hallmarks of robust competition.”
“Android has enabled this and created more choice for everyone, not less,” he added.
The reference to “falling prices” points to a hurdle for any investigation. John Sherman, the Ohio senator for whom the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is named, was able to decry monopolistic overcharges as “extortion which makes the people poor.” Modern antitrust theory revolves around the notion that unless there is direct harm to consumers, there is no case. And Google’s services are free to consumers.
The queasiness over the big tech companies is more spiritual than financial. Polls show a growing anxiety about the influence of technology on American lives, and the issue has emerged as a litmus test for the 2020 Democratic presidential field.
Ms. Warren said Saturday that she had been “talking for years about how Google is locking out competition.” A billboard her campaign erected last month near a train stop in San Francisco was designed to appeal to Silicon Valley commuters, particularly those who have been squeezed to distant housing by the area’s tech-fueled property boom.
It asks passers-by to “join our fight” to “Break Up Big Tech” by sending a text message.
On Saturday, a spokesman for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, another leading contender, said the senator “has been trying to sound the alarm for years that the concentration of economic power in the hands of a few threatens our democracy and leads to rigged political and economic systems.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/business/google-antitrust-investigation.html
2019-06-02 14:09:03Z
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The end of braille? Why fewer people are reading by touch - CTV News
VANCOUVER -- Experts say fewer people with poor eyesight are learning to read braille in North America, partly because audio books and voice technology are supplanting the written word.
Jen Goulden, past president of Braille Literacy Canada, said other factors have also had an impact on the use of braille in this country.
In the early 20th century, she said visually impaired children were educated at residential schools for the blind because all the resources were consolidated in one place. But the teaching of braille fell behind as an "unintended consequence" of putting visually impaired and sighted children together, said Goulden.
The use of large print for students with low vision has also been a factor, she said, because they are only left with audio as their vision decreases and they haven't learned braille.
Teaching braille and learning to read large print was not always done together because audio was cheaper and easier to provide, she added.
Goulden said there has also been a drop in the number of braille teachers and she expressed her frustration at a double-standard in education for children who are blind because they aren't given a chance to learn braille.
"I can't really fathom why it's OK to do that to a blind child when we would never think of doing that to a sighted child," she said.
Statistics on the use of braille aren't available from Canadian organizations.
Christopher S. Danielsen, of the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind, said its research suggests about 58 per cent of blind students in the United States were using braille in the early 1960s as their primary reading medium, which has dropped to about 10 per cent today.
Still, Danielsen said braille is not in danger of being lost.
"Most blind people have some vision. Most of us are not totally blind but braille tends to be more efficient than reading print," he added.
Danielsen said a person can get information but not literacy from listening.
"We routinely see blind people who are obviously very intelligent, very well-educated, but they don't have braille skills because they stopped reading print at some point ... and learned primarily by listening," he said.
"These are folks who will have graduate level degrees and yet have very atrocious spelling and punctuation just because they haven't read, they haven't actually read. They may have a good vocabulary when they speak but they don't even necessarily have the ability to translate that into writing."
Mary Ellen Gabias, president of Canadian Federation of the Blind, said voice technologies also have limitations.
"If you've ever used Siri to dictate a voice message to somebody or a text message to somebody, you know you can have some pretty humorous misrepresentation of what you were trying to say," Gabias said.
Learning braille helps with understanding as well, she said.
"If I'm listening to an audio book for fun or pleasure, I will often turn it up to double speed. With speech compression these days you can do that without the book sounding like Donald Duck, but if I really want to know and understand and study things, I want them in braille."
Jennifer Dunnam, manager of braille programs at the National Federation of the Blind, said access to braille is better now because it can be used with electronic tools.
"We have refreshable braille displays, which can be connected either by cable or by Bluetooth, and they present what is on the screen of the phone or a computer," she said.
Goulden said technology also makes it easier and cheaper to create braille.
"We tend to believe that the biggest issue with braille is not that it is no longer valuable ... but there is still a lot of stigma around it and people think that braille is slow to read," she said. "I can tell you that I can read faster than I can listen."
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June 02, 2019 at 03:05AM
TSX, US stocks fall as Trump tariff threat rattles investors - BNNBloomberg.ca
TORONTO -- Canada's main stock index ended its worst month of the year by falling on growing concerns about an economic slowdown amid U.S. plans to impose tariffs on Mexican imports.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 51.75 points on Friday to 16,037.49. That's 1.2 per cent down from a week ago and 3.4 per cent lower in the month of May.
Still, the Toronto market is 12 per cent higher so far in 2019 after a very strong start to the year.
The majority of market watchers would be happy with the year-to-date gain after withstanding December's collapse, says Kevin Headland, senior investment Strategist at Manulife Investments
"Things aren't necessarily bad but they're not as good as perhaps had been hoped and I think that's what the market has reacted to," he said in an interview.
Headland said investors, especially in the United States, reacted very negatively to overnight news from U.S. President Donald Trump that he plans to expand his global trade war by imposing tariffs on all Mexican imports to pressure the country to do more to stop migrants from entering the U.S.
The move also runs the risk of hampering ratification of the revised USMCA trade deal among the U.S., Canada and Mexico, observers have noted.
However, Headland said investor angst goes beyond trade skirmishes with Mexico or China.
"It's not just reacting to another set of tariffs, it's just more indication that there's more pressure on the global economy," he said. "I think it's a read through that things are definitely slowing down."
Data has backed that up. China's manufacturing activity contracted in May while the Canadian economy remained sluggish in the first three months of the year, rising just 0.4 per cent, and giving the weakest back-to-back quarters since 2015.
Investor concerns can be seen in bond yields falling and the yield curve inverting, which heightens concerns about a potential recession.
"Now we're probably seeing the risk of a recession pick up and the recession would likely be in the next 12 to 18 months," he said.
Ongoing weak data could also prompt the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates.
"It's very rare to see rate cuts before recession and perhaps this is a new environment or a less normal environment where perhaps we see rate cuts and we avoid the actual proverbial recession."
Eight of the 11 major sectors of the TSX decreased on Friday, led by health care, energy and financials.
Energy fell 1.14 per cent as the price of crude dropped to its lowest level since February on worries about reduced global demand and higher supplies.
The July crude contract was down US$3.09 at US$53.50 per barrel and the July natural gas contract was down 9.3 cents at US$2.45 per mmBTU.
That's bad for Alberta's oil patch, where Encana Corp. shares lost 4.4 per cent.
The heavyweight financials sector lost more than one per cent with Manulife Financial losing two per cent and Great-West Lifeco Inc. off 1.8 per cent.
Materials led the three sectors that rose, helped by higher metals prices. Barrick Gold shares gained 5.6 per cent.
The August gold contract was up US$18.70 at US$1,311.10 an ounce and the July copper contract was down 1.4 cents at US$2.64 a pound.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 73.93 cents US compared with an average of 74.07 cents US on Thursday.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 354.84 points at 24,815.04. The S&P 500 index was down 36.80 points at 2,752.06, while the Nasdaq composite was down 114.57 points at 7,453.15.
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May 31, 2019 at 08:56PM