UberCab — which was recently renamed “Uber” to avoid the appearance of marketing itself as a taxi business — has shared the full contents of the cease and desist orders it received this week from city authorities in San Francisco regulating transportation businesses there.
News of the cease and desist orders sparked an outcry from anti-regulation camps and fans of Ubercab web-wide. It also garnered votes of confidence (tweets) from the company’s investors and TechCrunch writers who said the orders only validate the company, and that it is disrupting taxi and limo services in San Francisco.
Others argued that Ubercab was either ill-informed, or flouting the law to gain unfair advantage versus the incumbent taxi industry in San Francisco. They were concerned about a funded startup’s regard for hard-working, law-abiding taxi drivers and taxi business owners.
Commenters questioning Ubercab’s model pointed out at least two other companies that work with taxi incumbents to provide a similar service in San Francisco. Both Cabulous and TaxiMagic provide mobile apps and services that allow consumers to order a ride, track it and [correction:] in TaxiMagic’s case to pay for it by mobile phone— but both of them count taxi drivers as clients, and aim to help them find and get more fares per day.