When you book a taxi with a private cab aggregator the next time round, you might want to think twice about what you're risking. In the short span of a month, two cases related to Uber India — a rash driver crashing his car into a stationary garbage van, killing passenger Tanzila Shaikh and a consultant, Preshit Deorukhkar, being charged R850 for cancelling a ride — and how the aggregator washed its hands off them, have put the spotlight back on the protection of consumer rights on e-commerce platforms.

What is common to both these cases is that Uber India has not rendered any support to the victims. Worse, they have refused to take any responsibility on the grounds that it is just "a technology company, which provides the app that renders a software application service to transportation providers". In fact, when the family of Reza Abid Ali, 45, a resident of Khar who continues to be in a vegetative state after an Uber driver knocked him down in November 2016, slapped a legal notice against the cab aggregator, Uber's response only reeked of indifference.