Booth Id:
BEHA042
Category:
Behavioral and Social Sciences
Year:
2019
Finalist Names:
Marin-Martinez, Gines (School: IES Alcantara)
Abstract:
The collaborative economy is generating a new paradigm of commercial
interactions and innovative business models at the core of the ICT. Are Uber and
BlaBlaCar just intermediary enterprises between users and providers of transport
services? Are they actually companies that take advantage of legal ambiguities
to execute their economic activities at a lower cost? Are the drivers of these
platforms in fact undercover workers? Why is it so difficult to adapt these
economic innovations to European laws? What can we do about that?
When analyzing the legal framework at both national and EU levels, Uber and BlaBlaCar find themselves in two very different situations. As they operated when this research was finished, Uber would actually be a transportation company (not a technological intermediary as it claimed) and its drivers would actually be undercover workers; BlaBlaCar, on the other hand, is not a transportation company nor are its drivers workers.