Uber Black Back In Korea Following Regulatory Snafu

Uber is making a comeback of sorts in Korea, having restarted its Uber Black service in that country.

TechCrunch reported Wednesday (Nov. 11) that the ride-hailing company brought the service back after roughly a year’s controversy kept it stalled, limiting the service to only subsets of Korea’s population.

The government found the company guilty of violating rules tied to local transportation, and as a result, Uber was hobbled a bit, only able to offer Uber Black rides to the elderly, disabled and foreigners. Now, says TechCrunch, those restrictions are no more, indicating that just about any group or individual can be served.

[bctt tweet=”The government found the company guilty of violating rules tied to local transportation.”]

The site said that the moratorium on Uber Black has been lifted, in part due to new regulations that allow for a new competitor in the private car service industry — Kakao Black. TechCrunch stated that the reinstatement of Uber Black in the country offers a “positive step” for the company but added that the peer-to-peer UberX service remains suspended, after having been halted in March of this year. The Korean government pressured that service to stop. But as an Uber spokesperson told the site, “We want to be able to offer more products, so [reopening UberX in Korea] is something that we’d like to explore with the government.”

In reference to the resurrection of Uber Black, the company said it is in dialogue with authorities to alleviate the “challenging times” of Friday and Saturday as part of a “Taxi Happy Zone” being featured in Seoul.

Elsewhere, said TechCrunch, “there’s no update on whether Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is welcome in Korea, however. Authorities threatened Kalanick with jail time last year, but Uber declined to comment on whether the situation has changed.”

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