What is baffling to me is why they're doing this now? They've clearly benefited substantially from last year's lockdowns[0] so what is the rationale for squeezing labor costs? A directive from holding company (delivery hero) following the trend of other players in the space to challenge the working status of the drivers?
As a side note: Since yesterday's twitter backlash, a lot of people are requesting to delete their accounts only to get a response back with a dodgy document[1] stating "that they require time to understand your demand" and "that it will take from 1 to 3 months to process". The say that "they may ask additional identification". They ask for email/username (which they should already have??) and that depending on the frequency of your demands, they may charge you a "reasonable fee" for "administrative costs".
The GDPR require the capability of deleting ones account from a platform be "without undue delay"[2]. I'm no lawyer but their response seems to violate the terms.
> Since yesterday's twitter backlash, a lot of people are requesting to delete their accounts only to get a response back with a dodgy document[1] stating "that they require time to understand your demand" and "that it will take from 1 to 3 months to process".
Two months ago Foodpanda Thailand (also a Delivery Hero subsidiary) took a darker pattern by removing the delete account button in its entirety. This doesn't last long, though if two companies under the same parent company try to do this, I would consider it a parent company's corporate culture, not just the action of its subsidiary.
To elaborate, the massive influx of deletion in Thailand's case is due to Foodpanda's so-called "miscommunication" of labeling a protester (who is caught on camera setting fire against a sacred artifact) a "terrorist". Sympathizers to the protesters' cause then rush to delete the account, only to see a dark pattern mentioned above.
As a side note: Since yesterday's twitter backlash, a lot of people are requesting to delete their accounts only to get a response back with a dodgy document[1] stating "that they require time to understand your demand" and "that it will take from 1 to 3 months to process". The say that "they may ask additional identification". They ask for email/username (which they should already have??) and that depending on the frequency of your demands, they may charge you a "reasonable fee" for "administrative costs". The GDPR require the capability of deleting ones account from a platform be "without undue delay"[2]. I'm no lawyer but their response seems to violate the terms.
[0]Article in greek. Basically says that their income went from 43M euros to 64M and they paid a dividend of 20M euros to their shareholders: https://www.capital.gr/epixeiriseis/3551288/tinaxe-tin-mpank...
[1]Greek again: https://twitter.com/mpodil/status/1438620693055352834
[2]Paragraph 1 on grounds of (b) https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr/