uForget Stars, You Might Be Able To Rate Uber Drivers With An Emoji Soonr

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  Who wants to get five stars when they can get a smiley face or a thumbs up instead? That’s the idea behind a new rating system Uber is testing.

  Quartz reports that the ride-hailing service began testing an emoji-based rating system in a handful of markets, giving riders the option to bestow a smiley face, frown face, thumbs up, a thumbs down, or other emotion-based images in place of stars.

  Under the current rating system, a rider and driver are prompted to evaluate each other — based on a scale of five stars — upon completion of their trip.

  Karun Arya, a spokesperson for Uber, says the new initiative started at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco and will be rolled out to a small group of riders around the world.

  So far, Uber users in Austin, TX, and Singapore have reported being prompted to rate their drivers with the new ratings.

  @Uber now following @YouTube on ratings….no star ratings allowed…let's be PC and rate with thumbs and smilies… http://pic.twitter.com/y4zyEs8yqe

  — Anthony Bowman (@tonybowmanbotek) December 5, 2015

  Whoa, Uber just asked me to give a mere thumbs up/down rather than a star rating. When did this start? http://pic.twitter.com/MUQJIblS9Y

  — Bryan Ma (@bryanbma) December 15, 2015

  According to Quartz, the new system may help Uber in its efforts to weaken drivers’ argument that the company treats them as employees, not like contractors as the ride-hailing service contends they are. With the current rating system, Uber can fire a driver if their rating falls below 4.6 stars. Drivers say this action shows Uber controls their work environment, thus serving as an employer.

  Uber may replace its five-star driver rating system with emoji [Quartz]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

u“Do Not Track” Bill Hopes To Let Consumers Just Say No To Online Trackingr

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  Just about anywhere you go online, at least some of your actions are being tracked. Sometimes, it’s as simple and innocuous as measuring unique visits to a website. Other times, it’s more invasive — keeping track of the pages you browse to provide you more targeted advertising. A newly introduced piece of federal legislation aims to give consumers more choices about when their browsing behavior is being tracked.

  Today, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (CT) and Ed Markey (MA) are introducing the Do Not Track Online Act of 2015 [PDF], which would direct the Federal Trade Commission to create new regulations “regarding the collection and use of personal information obtained by tracking the online activity of an individual.”

  If the bill passes, the FTC would have a year to establish standards for implementing a simple and easy-to-use Do Not Track mechanism for consumers to indicate that their personal information should not be collected while surfing the web. The FTC would also create a rule prohibiting providers from collecting the personal information of individuals who have used the Do Not Track mechanism.

  The law wouldn’t ban the collection of all data. If the collection is deemed necessary to provide a service requested by the user and the information is anonymized or deleted as soon as that service is provided, it can be collected. Similarly, if the user consents to the data collection — so long as the disclosures about the collection are clear — it can continue.

  Because tracking is so widespread and so, perhaps inextricably, wrapped up in almost every site you visit, the FTC will been asked to consider a number of factors in crafting reasonable regulations, including, the technical feasibility and costs of implementation and compliance, how to alert consumers to the availability of a Do Not Track mechanism, and whether and how information can be collected anonymously so that it cannot be reasonably linked to a single person or computer.

  The proposed law would also give the FTC and state attorneys general the authority to seek civil penalties against violators of these regulations.

  “Consumers need this protection against invasive tracking – companies that collect private, sensitive information with every online click,” said Blumenthal in a statement. “People deserve to be empowered to stop trackers who collect and store their personal, private information.”

  Adds Markey, “Every online click consumers make provides a detailed and private picture of their personal lives, and American should have control over the collection and use of this personal, sensitive information.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uReminder: We Want To See Your Photos Of Kids Who Hate Hanging With Santa Clausr

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• As the doors on the advent calendar open one by one, bringing us closer to Christmas, there’s still time for you to be part of our annual Consumerist holiday celebration. And by celebration, we mean, celebrating the effect the mall Santa Claus sometimes has on the younger set.

  Once again, we’re opening up the tipline to submissions of either your kid visiting with Santa or other mall characters, or a disastrous visit from your own past, to share with Consumerist readers.

  To send in your photos (the larger the better!), here’s how you go about it:
  
  1. Attach it in email with the subject line SCARY SANTA 2015
  2. Include your child’s name and age in the body of the email (or if it was you way back when, your name, age at the time, and the year the photo was taken) along with any fun anecdotes about the experience.
  3. Send it to tips@consumerist.com for us to enjoy, watermark and share on the site on Christmas Day.

  Please note, you need to be the child’s parent or the subject of the photo for your photo submission to be published, or we’ll have to get permission directly from the parents if you’re someone’s uncle or aunt.

  
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by consumerist.com via Consumerist

uAndroid Pay Opening The Doors To In-App Purchases Starting Todayr

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• A few months after Google launched Android Pay into the wild, the company says the payment system will make the hop from tap-and-pay transactions at stores to include in-app purchases as well.

  Over on the Android Official Blog, the company says about a dozen apps have integrated Android Pay into their systems, allowing users to pay for things like a ride from here to there or a hot meal delivered directly to your door: Google is kicking things off with partners including Lyft, OpenTable, HotelTonight and DoorDash, and says many others will soon be including the feature in the coming months.

  To help encourage smartphone users to use Android Pay, some of those partners are also offering limited-time deals, like $20 off on OpenTable, a $10 discount on a Lyft ride, $10 off DoorDash and others.

  A number of major retailers have already agreed to be included on the Android Pay chain outside of in-app purchases: McDonald’s, Subway, Macy’s, Meijer, BJ’s, Petco, Foot Locker, Staples, Whole Foods, Walgreens, GameStop, and Panera.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uSeattle City Council Approves App-Based Drivers Union That Can’t Actually Do Anythingr

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  Should livery drivers, especially drivers who work for app-based transportation services like Lyft and Uber, have the right to organize in citywide unions? Seattle’s city council voted unanimously yesterday to allow such a union, even though the city’s mayor doesn’t intend to sign the ordinance, which may also be illegal on the federal level. Specifically, a group of independent contractors bargaining collectively is against price-fixing laws.

  The ordinance being illegal wasn’t Mayor Ed Murray’s only issue with the bill: he was concerned that the union, affiliated with the Teamsters, would require a substantial amount of city resources to put in place a system that would be entirely new. No city has ever had a union for app-based drivers.

  In a statement on the bill after it was passed, Murray explained:

  I said consistently during this debate that I support the right of workers to organize to create a fair and just workplace. I remain concerned that this ordinance, as passed by the Council, includes several flaws, especially related to the relatively unknown costs of administering the collective bargaining process and the burden of significant rulemaking the Council has placed on City staff.

  There is already a group in place: Seattle-based App-Based Drivers Association is affiliated with local Teamsters, and the union helped the drivers for ride-hailing services lobby city government to turn the group into a full-fledged union.

  As one might expect, the apps that employ these drivers aren’t keen to collectively bargain with every driver in Seattle. A representative for Lyft told the New York Times that a union would endanger drivers’ privacy and make prices for passengers go up.

  This follows another legal headache to the south, as a class action suit against Uber seeking reiumbursement of expenses makes its way through federal courts. If the mayor signs a future version of the bill, the federal legal issues would need to be sorted out first.

  Seattle Will Allow Uber and Lyft Drivers to Form Unions [New York Times]
  Seattle’s Uber Unionization Measure a New Economy Test Case [Associated Press]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uFarm Animals Can Get Over-The-Counter Antibiotics That Humans Need A Prescription Forr

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  If you get sick and need an antibiotic, you’ll also need a prescription because these medically important drugs shouldn’t be used willy-nilly. But if you’re a cow, pig, chicken, or fish, you can get many of those same antibiotics without any prescription whatsoever at any number of retail and online stores.

  As we noted in last week’s report on the FDA’s latest data on antibiotics used on farm animals, 97% of these antimicrobials are purchased without a prescription or a veterinary feed directive. Nearly two-thirds (60%) of these over-the-counter antibiotics sales are for drugs deemed medically important to human beings.

  

  But surely you can’t just go to the store or hop online and pick up a two-pound bag of chlortetracycline without any questions being asked? Oh wait — yes you can.

  Writing for National Geographic, Maryn McKenna — author of Superbug — notes that she was able to do just that, purchasing a large bag of the drug with nothing more than a credit card.

  In response to skeptics, some doctors posted the pics to Twitter showing that drugs like penicillin, cephaphirin, and others were readily available for purchase on the shelves of farm supply stores.

  @marynmck @JonathanSellman @spidadoc1 @Ddrekonja @KerriMPR mills fleet farm http://pic.twitter.com/qzQ3BHrHSA

  — Tim Johnson (@plasmidology) December 13, 2015

  Response to MPR caller Re: Abx & Vet med. #antibioticresistance @marynmck @spidadoc1 @Ddrekonja @KerriMPR http://pic.twitter.com/bvvxDUiF98

  — Jonathan Sellman, MD (@JonathanSellman) December 13, 2015

  Likewise, you can easily buy a jar of cephalexin — a commonly used antibiotic to treat ear and urinary tract infections in humans — under the Fish Flex brand from Amazon and other retailers.

  We certainly don’t recommend anyone buy these veterinary forms of the antibiotics, nor do we want to suggest that you should use antibiotics without first seeing a physician. Misuse of antibiotics can have dangerous results, as can using the wrong drug.

  But if humans should take care to only use antibiotics under the guidance of a healthcare professional, shouldn’t the same be true for cows and pigs?

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uKohl’s To Stay Open 170 Hours Straight For Last-Minute Holiday Shoppersr

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  Kohl’s once again wants to make sure you’re able to mark every last item off your holiday shopping list by keeping most of its stores open for more than seven straight days leading up to Christmas. 

  The retailer announced Tuesday that it will one-up its previous efforts to help procrastinators this year, by keeping its doors open for 170 hours — an extra two days longer than last year.

  Customers planning to shop ’til they drop can do so starting at 7 a.m. Dec. 17 until 6 p.m. Dec. 24, Christmas Eve. Kohl’s recommends shoppers check Kohls.com to make sure their preferred store is sticking to those always-open hours.

  “We are opening our doors around-the-clock leading up to Christmas to give customers even more time to get their last-minute gifts,” Michelle Gass, Kohl’s chief merchandise and customer officer, said in a statement.

  This is the third year that Kohl’s has pulled the holiday hours marathon. In addition to extended hours, the company says it will offer last-minute shoppers a plethora of deals and extra savings.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist