Ethical Challenges Faced by Uber in Peer-to-Peer Sharing App

This report discusses the ethical challenges faced by Uber in using app-based peer-to-peer sharing technology and the threats it needs to overcome to sustain its growth and reputation in the transportation industry.

Running head: COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Executive Summary
Uber has attained substantial achievements and has been advancing towards conquering global
market. However the rapid achievement of the organisation has posed critical ethical challenges
for Uber in the ways of legal social regulatory and technical operations. Uber have significantly
expanded to more than 59 countries across the world and its revenues have been estimated to be
e approximately $85 billion dollars. In recent times, major proportion of individuals show
inclination in using the application or other division digital devices while sending a request for
using services for booking hotels, ordering meals or paying online. It has been revealed that Uber
essentially recognised as a start-up tech company founded by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp
have enabled well established connection base for connecting its drivers with the passengers
through the application of ride sharing service. Company’s services typically cost less than the
traditional taxis which have taste the way for them to establish a significant position in the
transportation market. Uber has attained substantial achievements and has been advancing
towards conquering global market. a major concern for service providers who have been
competing with new sharing services operators specifically around 68,500 taxi drivers around the
country. It has noted that taxi rules and licenses fees forced taxi fares to be higher than Uber’s
offered price range. Although Uber’s primary intention relied on providing power and sufficient
authority to its clientele, customers of Uber have the authority to estimate ride charges as well as
arrival timings of their taxis and further view the advance of a driver as well as examine actual
versus advised routes, update payments furthermore assess trip’s direction, time, driver as well as
fare. The report has offered insights regarding Uber’s ethical considerations and threats it needs
to overcome to sustain its growth and repute in the transportation industry.

2
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
Discussion.......................................................................................................................................4
Ethical challenges Faced by Uber’s Peer-to-Peer Sharing App..................................................4
Threats Uber needs to Overcome................................................................................................7
Regulations Uber should develop to protect customers and competitors..................................10
Conclusion....................................................................................................................................12
References.....................................................................................................................................13

3
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Introduction
Uber Technologies Inc. (Uber) is recognized as a tech start-up which offers ride sharing
services by facilitating connection between independent contractors (drivers) and riders with the
use of an application. Uber has received substantial recognition within a short period in the
transportation industry. Royakkers et al. (2018) have mentioned that the business operations of
Uber have significantly expanded to more than 59 countries across the world and its revenues
have been estimated to be e approximately $85 billion dollars. In recent times, major proportion
of individuals show inclination in using the application or other division digital devices while
sending a request for using services for booking hotels, ordering meals or paying online. Reports
of Fraustino and Kennedy (2018) have revealed that Uber essentially recognised as a start-up
tech company founded by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp have enabled well established
connection base for connecting its drivers with the passengers through the application of ride
sharing service. The organization has ensured supreme level of service at low cost by using a
smart-phone app in order to offer on-demand services to its clientele by establishing a connection
base of passengers to taxi drivers (Uber.com, 2019). The taxi driver employed to Uber Inc
primarily uses their personal car to offer the service which aid the organization to attain around
20% cut of the fare. Company’s services typically cost less than the traditional taxis which have
taste the way for them to establish a significant position in the transportation market. According
to Chee (2018), Uber has attained substantial achievements and has been advancing towards
conquering global market. However the rapid achievement of the organisation has posed critical
ethical challenges for Uber in the ways of legal social regulatory and technical operations. The
purpose of the report is to evaluate the ethical challenges that Uber encounters in using app-
based peer to sharing technology. In addition to this, the paper will analyse risks which company

4
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
has to overcome in order to be successful. Furthermore, should there be regulation to develop
compliance with standards in order to safeguard rivals and users.
Discussion
Ethical challenges Faced by Uber’s Peer-to-Peer Sharing App
The ethical challenges which the organisation has been encountering while using app
based peer to peer sharing technology chiefly includes financial misconduct protection privacy
issues. Recent reports revealed by Fraustino and Kennedy (2018) have mentioned that the drivers
of Uber are employed as independent contractors where by the authorisation to use their
individual resources such as their privately owned cars for ride sharing. However the
organisations’ criterion for their drivers is greatly inclined towards the status of the employees
rather than as a contractor. Such a consideration has been accountable to pose critical challenges
as the drivers might have to spend their personal money in order to maintain the car for
ridesharing (Krug & Heuser, 2018). Moreover, the drivers’ expenses have been further restricted
by the Uber's demands and requirements which primarily involves solicitation regulations and
guidelines in addition to the way in which the payment of Uber drivers can be guaranteed
through hourly earnings. At this juncture, Rogers (2015) has noted that while Uber has claimed
that it efficiently provides liability insurance licenses for its drivers, the regulation might have
failed to cover insurance policy for personal vehicles which have been used for commercial
purposes.
Reports of Royakkers et al. (2018) have mentioned that Uber's website claims that the
organisation offers around $ 1.5 million in insurance for drivers further claiming that there will
be no discrepancies if an accident is caused. The company has been proficiently implementing

5
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
advertising strategies by using slogans such as the "safest ride on road". Through these slogans,
Uber has been aiming to assert that they promote as well as support strictest safety standards.
However, reports of Mittendorf (2017) have claimed that these slogans have been alleged of
being unethical as a number of lawsuits have been recently registered against the organisation for
not maintaining ethical safety measures for its workforce. Reports of Bogner, Chanson and
Meeuw (2016) have estimated that Uber can reduce over $ 500 million from the Australian taxi
bill which is approximately 10% of the %5.5 billion which has been spent every year by
Australians while seeking services from traditional taxi providers. Meanwhile, Koopman,
Mitchell and Thierer (2014) have argued that other sharing platforms have been amplifying its
employment opportunities as well as revenues for the individuals on the edge of the labour
market. Such opportunities have further facilitated people to engage to work who have belonged
to several underused homes and engaging other unused possessions to work. However, a major
concern for service providers who have been competing with new sharing services operators
specifically around 68,500 taxi drivers around the country. Posen (2015) has noted that taxi rules
and licenses fees forced taxi fares to be higher than Uber’s offered price range. Although Uber’s
primary intention relied on providing power and sufficient authority to its clientele, customers of
Uber have the authority to estimate ride charges as well as arrival timings of their taxis and
further view the advance of a driver as well as examine actual versus advised routes, update
payments furthermore assess trip’s direction, time, driver as well as fare. However, the capacity
to rate a driver on the application is recognized as a lighter form of consumer safety.
Furthermore, the report has argued that although a number of taxi regulations must be reduced,
mostly these recount to taxi licensing as well as pricing. Moreover, Li, Hong and Zhang (2016)
have claimed that not only safety regulations and policies must remain in place, Uber drivers

6
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
should also be essential in attaining specific standards related to passing a criminal record and
driving history check, essential to possess a zero blood-alcohol awareness, and for their cars to
undertake an initial roadworthy check in addition to suitable follow-up assessments.
On the other hand, the case of Uber has shed light on its incompetence of maintaining
proper background evaluation of new recruits. As per the Habibi, Davidson and Laroche (2017),
several taxi drivers employed in Uber have received accusations of sexually molesting or
abusing their passengers or not providing utmost safety and services which they seek for.
Drawing relevance to these evidences, Koopman, Mitchell and Thierer (2014) have claimed that
the level of safety measures, accountability previously provided by traditional taxi drivers have
been lacking in the business operations of Uber even though with an implementation of app-
based peer to peer sharing service. Thus the ethical considerations of Uber along with its
business operations at this juncture come into question in relation to the company's
accountability towards consumer privacy. According to authors, Uber's introduced 'god view'
mechanism chiefly designed for keeping a track of its users activities without their consent. This
has shed light on the ethical challenge encountered by the company in recent times. Furthermore,
another critical privacy dilemma experienced by the organisation related to having user's
personal details such as information regarding bank or financial transactions on their application.
Rassman (2014) has noted that the founders of Uber essentially aimed to used its advanced
application in order to determine price range for the rides and thus have led to introduce the
increased ride fare known as "surge pricing" to its customers. Such a tool with an algorithm has
been designed in order to estimate riding charges during peak times for instance during severe
traffic congestion or heavy downpour. Although, such a strategic approach has been primarily

7
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
initiated by Uber's founders to aid its consumers understand the charging prices of the rides at
peak hours, it has developed as an issue of ethical dilemma.
Threats Uber needs to Overcome
It is imperative to note that Uber has been recognized as an epitome of digital disruption
and has totally altered the facade of the transportation sector, exclusively the taxi take into
service business. While, Uber has already developed considerably, it has hardly investigated the
potential. Watanabe et al. (2014) have noted that for Uber attain a highly significant position, it
must develop at the geographic level into new nations and cities. Bogner, Chanson and Meeuw
(2016) have claimed that expanding over cities such as NYC or Chicago can pose severe
challenges to Uber due to the extreme convenience provided by traditional taxi services in these
cities. At this juncture, Ravenelle (2017) have claimed that Uber should aim to expand its
business operations into smaller and untapped cities. On the other hand, expanding Uber at a
global level is regarded to be equally essential. Furthermore, increasing the number of Uber
drivers has been regarded to be highly essential for its development; employing drivers into their
organization will facilitate the company to have additional Uber cars available in these cities.
Fraustino and Kennedy (2018) have noted that this strategy leads to the distance or ETA time
between a customer and a driver being at lower level. Typically, if an ETA (estimated time
arrival) shows over ten minutes, a rider in such a scenario might have second thoughts before
taking services of Uber. Moreover, another direct idea through which Uber can combat risks of
business issues can implement strategy in increasing its fare or take over 25% reduction from
their drivers.

8
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Through these strategies, Uber will facilitate its raise of net income. However, this
strategy has been used through a business model which poses critical risks to Uber’s business.
Uber’s marketing strategy relied on increasing the number of drivers (Royakkers et al., 2018).
Such a marketing strategy has resulted to an excess rate of drivers thus causing a significant
decrease in the number of passengers which each driver attains. As per reports of Fraustino and
Kennedy (2018), this overflow of drivers has posed threats to Uber’s business operations, thus
causing reduced remuneration for drivers, thus resulting to higher level of job disengagement and
apprehension towards Uber. On the other hand, Uber has been facing critical threats due to its
surge pricing. According to Chee (2018), Uber’s surge pricing has been posing significant risks
to the company’s bottom line as the company rapidly increases its charges on specific days such
as holidays or during any crisis situations. While, such a marketing strategy has been resultant to
an increase in net profits for the company as well as its drivers, there has been observed
significant level of discontentment and disapproval from the passengers. Thus, Uber must
develop marketing strategies in order to prevent from losing their clients. According to Krug and
Heuser (2018), Uber must show utmost vigilance in strategizing its ride charges.
. However, the USP of Uber as a start-up company relied on offering economical fare to
its customers. As a result, Uber’s shift from its USP has created apprehension within its clientele
thus leading to radical loss of its customers with their switch to traditional taxi services (Cramer
& Krueger, 2016). At this juncture, concurrently with fares, Uber’s marketing strategies should
ensure sustaining its customers’ demands and satisfaction. Thus, the company should return to its
initially set marketing concept of keeping around 20% cut to its fare. Meanwhile, studies of
Habibi, Davidson and Laroche (2017) have mentioned that Uber has a severely competitive base
involving Lyft and Sidecar by acquiring large number of drivers as well as clients to their

9
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
services. Pick and Dreher (2015) have cited the example of Sidecar whereby the company with
an improved marketing tactics has enables its drivers to set their individual price, implying that
they contend for the customer’s business by lowering their rates and providing relatively
economical price. Thus, Uber to overcome such a threat from its competitors must continually
evaluate their business operations. Another critical threat which Uber has been encountering is
related to its regulatory constraints. As per study conducted by Watanabe et al. (2017), several
taxi services have disputed against Uber whereas some governments have restricted the
availability of Uber in countries such as Germany which has restricted services of Uber in many
of its cities. The Federal Court of Justice, settling down a final decision, has maintained its
lower-court rulings in agreement to the complaint filed by the Berlin taxi business claiming that
Uber Black service showed infringement to the German laws prevailing car rentals services.
However, currently, Uber has been providing its services in four German cities namely Berlin,
Munich, Frankfurt and Duesseldorf with utmost compliance with German laws. Uber
has confronted this national ban by assuring its customers to continue its service regardless of
potential hefty fines (Knapp, 2015).
In addition to the challenges to Uber’s business operations, the company has been facing
threats at primary level where regulating innovation and knowledge without stifling the
developmental growth of the domain. Meanwhile, Edelman and Geradin (2015) have claimed
that the United States government has been persuading innovation as a marketing strategy to
elevate the economy ad increase competitiveness for several years. Uber consequently has been
facing issues in regulating such innovation without stifling it. Thus, regulators must find out if
innovative new companies should be subjective to the similar regulations as others within a
comparable sector, if they should be completely free-for-all.

10
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Regulations Uber should develop to protect customers and competitors
The federal government had been significantly in charge for taxi regulations during as
well as after World War II, by the 1970s. As a result, regulation of the taxi industry remained to
the responsibility of the municipalities. According to Di Amato (2016), drawing relevance to
most local regulation of the taxi industry relied on provisions that define a ‘taxicab’ to
recommend financial and insurance responsibilities and further specify the number of taxi
permits acceptable as well as the procedure for registering permits; advise driver licensing
measures and further set the limits of services offered by taxicabs and establish the ride charges
and method of computing fares. Typically, these regulations have resulted to entry controls as
well as average-price fixing. Rassman (2014) has noted that entry controls mainly determine
number of taxi licenses a given municipality which shows a propensity to impact the availability
and value of taxicab services, company as well as driver earnings, license values, responsibility
of service providers in addition to the capacity and complexity of managing the regulatory
regime. Moreover, with the new economy whereby the primary focus relies on consumers and
innovation no longer focuses on creating new things instead of emphasizing on fostering
involvement and enhancing the level of consumer experience (Rassman, 2014). The challenges
that Uber has been encountered from taxi drivers as well as from government bodies shows a
lack of perception of new sharing economy. New regulations should not intend on suppress
innovation or competition. As per the view of Edelman and Geradin (2015), economists have
advocated the ride sharing services along with its impact on the market. The competition that
Uber brings to the transportation industry is demands posed by the consumers.
Even though the average trips per taxi have shown a significant decrease with the launch
of app sharing taxi services like Uber, the decline significantly depended on consumer

11
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
preferences. Thus, Uber must efficiently conform to the taxi regulations of the nations where it
executes its operation. Moreover, as modern customers show great inclination towards using
facilities of Uber rather than depending on traditional taxi services, any regulations conformed
by Uber should protect as well as defence the consumer experience by stimulating safety. Uber
must efficiently shed light on the company’s after-safety concerns which further must properly
be addressed by guidelines along with the free-market competition in order to regulate any other
lingering issues. While using initial approaches in using safety-oriented regulations, legislators
should focus and enhance current statutory schemes in cities which attainably standardize Uber
or other ridesharing taxi services.
Governments chiefly at the local and state levels are concerned regarding the disputed
legality of Uber transactions in addition to the lack of revenues gathered from these transactions.
However, to shed light on these areas of challenges, Uber has been reaching to cities and states
in order to aid legislators draft or regulate legislation (Di Amato, 2016). Furthermore, the
company has been focusing on the “Frequently Asked Questions” page, Uber has informed and
necessitates Hosts to gather knowledge and comply with local regulations and their landlord’s
rental policies which have prohibited immediate rentals. Reports of Watanabeb et al. (2017) have
noted that Uber has collaborated with taxi service legislations of San Francisco, Portland, New
York in order to deal with the concerns of the city and further to aid legislatures in order to draft
new laws to guarantee that Uber users who do not violate city laws. On the contrary, reports of
Christensen, Raynor and McDonald (2015)have noted that Uber has been incompetent to address
legislative or tax concerns in addition to its primary concern which are regulatory. Furthermore,
Uber’s communication with governments has been consequential to government entrusting
regulatory accountabilities to Uber rather than the distinctive arrangement of the government

12
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
regulating the business (Edelman & Geradin, 2015). On the other hand, regulators might show
critical concern that as Uber-created regulations shows utmost inadequacy in attaining
government standards thus Uber must comply with consumer-safety regulations to sustain its
position and services in the transportation industry.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that Uber must incorporate
outlined maintenance regulations for cars related to the requirement of biannual scrutiny and
checking for any recalls that might be valid to a given car. Additionally, Uber must comply with
employee protection regulations in order to provide a minimum insurance coverage of around $1
million for each accident to Uber cars while performing their duty. Moreover, in order to
guarantee safety of drivers while driving and to guarantee that drivers are well-equipped with
traffic laws, drivers employed to the organization must also be required to pass a road safety
analysis which draw relevance to the test essential for a driver to obtain his license for getting
employed to Uber. Finally, Uber must evaluate drivers every twelve months to go over driver
ratings as well as opinion which they must have received from riders in order to ensure that
everything surrounding the rider knowledge and past experience align to the expectations of
Uber. It has been noted that the yearly check will permit Uber to suspend any drivers who have
any record of criminal acts as an employee of Uber while the charges are being resolved,
defending riders from potentially precarious drivers.

13
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
References
Bogner, A., Chanson, M., & Meeuw, A. (2016, November). A decentralised sharing app running
a smart contract on the ethereum blockchain. In Proceedings of the 6th International
Conference on the Internet of Things (pp. 177-178). ACM.
Brescia, R. H. (2016). Uber for Lawyers: The Transformative Potential of a Sharing Economy
Approach to the Delivery of Legal Services. Buff. L. Rev., 64, 745.
Chee, F. M. (2018). An Uber ethical dilemma: examining the social issues at stake. Journal of
Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 16(3), 261-274.
Christensen, C. M., Raynor, M. E., & McDonald, R. (2015). What is disruptive
innovation. Harvard Business Review, 93(12), 44-53.
Cramer, J., & Krueger, A. B. (2016). Disruptive change in the taxi business: The case of
Uber. American Economic Review, 106(5), 177-82.
Di Amato, A. (2016). Uber and the sharing economy. Italian LJ, 2, 177.
Edelman, B. G., & Geradin, D. (2015). Efficiencies and regulatory shortcuts: How should we
regulate companies like Airbnb and Uber. Stan. Tech. L. Rev., 19, 293.
Fraustino, J. D., & Kennedy, A. K. (2018). Care in crisis: an applied model of care
considerations for ethical strategic communication. The Journal of Public Interest
Communications, 2(1), 18.
Gonzalez-Padron, T. L. (2017). Ethics in the sharing economy: Creating a legitimate marketing
channel. Journal of Marketing Channels, 24(1-2), 84-96.

14
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Habibi, M. R., Davidson, A., & Laroche, M. (2017). What managers should know about the
sharing economy. Business Horizons, 60(1), 113-121.
Knapp, U. (2015). Uber endures nightmare week. Retrieved from
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31942997
Koopman, C., Mitchell, M., & Thierer, A. (2014). The sharing economy and consumer
protection regulation: The case for policy change. J. Bus. Entrepreneurship & L., 8, 529.
Krug, M., & Heuser, S. (2018, September). Ethics in the field: Research practice in audio-visual
studies. In Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Vol.
19, No. 3).
Li, Z., Hong, Y., & Zhang, Z. (2016). Do ride-sharing services affect traffic congestion? An
empirical study of uber entry. Soc. Sci. Res. Netw, 2002, 1-29.
Mittendorf, C. (2017, January). The implications of trust in the Sharing Economy–an empirical
analysis of uber. In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System
Sciences.
Pick, F., & Dreher, J. (2015). Sustaining hierarchy–Uber isn’t sharing. Kings Review, 5.
Pisano, G. P. (2015). You need an innovation strategy. Harvard Business Review, 93(6), 44-54.
Posen, H. A. (2015). Ridesharing in the sharing economy: should regulators impose Uber
regulations on Uber. Iowa L. Rev., 101, 405.

15
COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Rassman, C. L. (2014). Regulating rideshare without stifling innovation: Examining the drivers,
the insurance gap, and why Pennsylvania should get on board. Pitt. J. Tech. L. &
Pol'y, 15, 81.
Ravenelle, A. J. (2017). Sharing economy workers: selling, not sharing. Cambridge Journal of
Regions, Economy and Society, 10(2), 281-295.
Rogers, B. (2015). The social costs of Uber. U. Chi. L. Rev. Dialogue, 82, 85.
Royakkers, L., Timmer, J., Kool, L., & van Est, R. (2018). Societal and ethical issues of
digitization. Ethics and Information Technology, 20(2), 127-142.
Uber.com. (2019). Uber - Earn Money by Driving or Get a Ride Now. Retrieved from
https://www.uber.com/in/en/
Watanabe, C., Naveed, K., Neittaanmäki, P., & Fox, B. (2017). Consolidated challenge to social
demand for resilient platforms-Lessons from Uber's global expansion. Technology in
society, 48, 33-53.