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It gives me great joy this news from across the sea that employers demanding that staff turn on their webcams is well a violation of human rights. An American company that fired its staffer who refused to turn on his webcam after his line manager demanded he did, has been ordered to pay a fine of $50,000.
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The company will also be paying the employee's court costs and a backlog of wages.
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Below are the tech stories and news you need to know to start your day, carefully curated by Technext.
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Summary of the news
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- iPhone 15 will most likely have a USB-C port
- YouTube to broadly support the @username format with the launch of YouTube handles
- Demanding employees turn on their webcams is a human rights violation, Dutch Court rules
- Amazon will invest €1 billion to electrify its delivery fleet in Europe
Amazon will invest €1 billion to electrify its delivery fleet in Europe
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iPhone 15 will most likely have a USB-C port
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An iPhone 15 USB-C port, in place of a Lightning one, is “essentially a lock,” says Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter.
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It has been widely speculated that Apple will choose the iPhone 15 to make the switch, a year ahead of it becoming mandatory for all smartphones sold within the European Union.
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9to5Mac reports that Apple has always gone its own way on iPhone connectors, something which has proven a benefit in the past. When the industry standard was microUSB – a unidirectional plug and port which was almost universally hated for being awkward to insert – Apple had the vastly better bidirectional Lightning port.
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However, the dreaded microUSB port has been superseded by USB-C, which is as easy to use as a Lightning port. Apple was an early adopter of this port in MacBooks, and most of its iPads have swapped out Lightning for USB-C. The Lightning connector in the iPhone is now something of an anomaly in the lineup. Many Apple owners would welcome being able to use USB-C chargers and cables for all their devices.
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Apple will also be effectively forced to make the switch to USB-C for its 2024 iPhone lineup, as that’s the year in which it will become a legal requirement for all smartphones sold within the 27 countries of the EU.
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A word from our partners!
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Fincra offers several different flexible payment solutions for global businesses. Businesses across multiple sectors can easily accept online payments via cards, bank transfers and Pay with PayAttitude giving customers the convenience and flexibility they want.
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Fincra also has POS Terminal, which provides various payment collection options like Pay with Transfer and Pay with Card for in-person transactions.
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YouTube gears to rollout handles (@username)
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YouTube is making it easier for creators to direct viewers to their channels. The company announced “handles” yesterday, a new way for creators to identify their channel with an @username format in order to interact with their viewers across YouTube Shorts, channel pages, in video descriptions, in comments and more. These handles will be made available to everyone on YouTube — you don’t need to be a creator of a certain size or subscriber count to claim your own unique @handle, YouTube says.
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With YouTube’s expansion into TikTok’s territory with YouTube Shorts, however, the company now wants to more closely mimic the way the ByteDance-owned video app encourages users to engage in back-and-forth discussions through their short videos and in the resulting discussions and video responses that come about. To work, that requires the use of @usernames — or @handles as YouTube calls them.
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Amazon to invest €1 billion in electrifying its fleet
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Amazon will spend €1 billion over five years to electrify its delivery fleet in Europe, the retail giant announced. According to The Verge, the money will be used to “double” the number of EVs in Europe to 10,000 vans and 1,500 “electric heavy goods vehicles.” The company has said it aims to be net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
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“Our transportation network is one of the most challenging areas of our business to decarbonize, and to achieve net-zero carbon will require a substantial and sustained investment,” Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO, said in a statement.
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Jassy said that Amazon’s investment will hopefully spur the installation of more public EV chargers in Europe, as well as serve as an incentive to the auto industry to make more electric delivery vehicles.
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The announcement comes as Amazon’s carbon output has ballooned last year despite the company’s efforts to sell itself as a leader in climate action. Its carbon dioxide emissions grew an eye-popping 18 percent in 2021 compared to 2020, according to its latest sustainability report.
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A word from our partners!
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For an exclusive 8-week mentorship program for you to take the next step in your Web3 Development Journey, register for the Polygon Bootcamp Africa Class of 2022 slated to hold this September.
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Court rules that employers can't demand staff to turn on webcam
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When Florida-based Chetu hired a telemarketer in the Netherlands, the company demanded the employee turn on his webcam. The employee wasn’t happy with being monitored “for 9 hours per day,” in a program that included screen-sharing and streaming his webcam.
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When he refused, he was fired, according to public court documents (in Dutch), for what the company stated was “refusal to work” and “insubordination.” The Dutch court didn’t agree, however, and ruled that “instructions to keep the webcam turned on is in conflict with the respect for the privacy of the workers.” In its verdict, the court goes so far as to suggest that demanding webcam surveillance is a human rights violation, according to TechCrunch.
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“I don’t feel comfortable being monitored for 9 hours a day by a camera. This is an invasion of my privacy and makes me feel really uncomfortable. That is the reason why my camera is not on,” the court document quotes the anonymous employee’s communication to Chetu. The employee suggests that the company was already monitoring him, “You can already monitor all activities on my laptop and I am sharing my screen.”
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According to the court documents, the company’s response to that message was to fire the employee. That might have worked in an at-will state such as Chetu’s home state Florida, but it turns out that labour laws work a little differently in other parts of the world. The employee took Chetu to court for unfair dismissal, and the court found in his favour, which includes paying for the employee’s court costs, back wages, a fine of $50,000, and an order to remove the employee’s non-compete clause. The court ruled that the company needs to pay the employee’s wages, unused vacation days and a number of other costs as well.
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Latest in funding
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Other stories we are following
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