Inline Insights

Since being first released on the consumer market in 2005, the global e-cigarette market has been growing rapidly. In the United States, sales grew at an annual rate of 115 percent in the 2009-12 period. It is estimated that the global market could increase to $10 billion by 2017. Some analysts have gone as far as suggesting that e-cigarettes could be outselling conventional cigarettes within a decade.

The Government would be advised to eschew a fracking at all costs approach in favour of a more carefully weighted public strategy.

One of the more eye-catching measures announced in the recent Queen’s Speech was the UK Government’s proposal to change the trespass laws and allow fracking companies to drill under people’s homes without their permission.

Tomorrow's protest against Uber, by an estimated 12,000 London taxi drivers, looks set to cause considerable disruption and have a significant negative economic impact too.  Figures suggest that the protest could cost London’s economy as much as £125 million (see tonight’s London Evening Standard).  The controversy centres on an app provided to Uber's drivers - separate from the one used by the public - that calculates the journey distance and time taken, and then relays this information to remote computer servers to determine the fee.

A bill regulating ridesharing services is expected to be imminently signed by Colorado State Governor John Hickenlooper.  This would make him the first US State Governor to sign into law such a bill. Whilst California was technically the first State to regulate the industry (its rules were created by the State’s Public Utilities Commission), Colorado’s rules are set to be the first crafted and enacted by elected State representatives. The bill will allow provide certainty for ridesharing companies who faced formal complaints from the State’s Public Utilities Commission, which maintained that they were operating illegally.

In a hugely significant development, the European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) has today ruled that Google must amend some search results at the request of ordinary people in a test of the so-called "right to be forgotten".

New rules for unregulated rideshare companies such as Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar passed the Illinois House on Thursday over complaints the push was aimed at stifling competition to the state’s powerful taxi industry.

The chamber voted 80-26 to support legislation sponsored by Rep. Michael Zalewski, D-Riverside, who described his measure as a “comprehensive, thoughtful” consumer-protection step.

“We want to ensure licensure. We want to ensure insurance coverage, and we want to ensure safety of our constituents,” Zalewski told his House colleagues.