We will hear from her. Strong debut. Shares of alibaba the trading in hong kong, ending the first trading day above listing price. Our top story, uber and its uncertain future in london. The citys Transit Authority has refused to grant them a license, saying uber failed to adequately verify driver identities. The ceo swiftly responded, tweeting that the decision was quote wrong. He had said safety is the Company Priority and will appeal the ruling. Londons mayor says much more needs to be done with regards to safety. I am keen for london to be a hotbed of innovation but you have got to abide by the rules. What is clear is ubers policy and practices mean passenger safety is being compromised. Emily i caught up with a guest, asking him if uber or the technology itself allowed taylor i caught up with a guest, asking him if uber or the technology itself allowed drivers not to be verified. The issue here is whether drivers in london were able to get on the platform even though they were not the right driver or properly licensed. The city of london says we are talking about some 10,000 rides with a driver who should not be giving the ride. That is a big concern for them. Uber has said it corrected the mistake. But when you are already on the ropes in a city and under tight scrutiny, having these questions about whether the right drivers are giving rides is not a problem that uber wants to be having. Taylor you talk about them being on the ropes again. This is not the first time they have been in this situation. In your story, you point out it was september of 2017 when they temporarily had their license revoked as well. What changes have they made over that timeframe . Eric the company has undergone a cultural shift under dara khosrowshahi. To ubers benefit and detriment. It has kind of slowed down in terms of coming up with new ideas, new, exciting products. On the other hand, the company has tried to crack down. Working with regulators and having a discussion. This is exactly the kind of area where the Company Hopes under dara to be winning. It is unfortunate for the business to make that happen. Taylor to not be hostile, not be dogmatic, but try to create a more friendly working approach. Is that the approach they are taking and is it working . Eric i think dialogue, working with cities, countries of estates everything in between, but when they disagree, coming out and saying it. You do see, in the california fight over independent contractor rules, they did sort of say, the referendum, we will put money behind it. We are a company that will throw our weight around more than they might have had after Travis Kalanick left the job and their reputation was in tatters. I think they are still trying to play the cooperative nice guy to the extent they can. Taylor talking about ubers response, i want to bring in a soundbite from the head of the u. K. In uber. In the u. K. , one thing we are intending to launch soon is driver face matching. Essentially, a technology that has been in the u. S. Since 2016. That means that drivers can only log on to their account and start trips once we have validated either through automated means or human contact that they are who they say they are. Taylor does this appease any of the regulatory issues going on right now . Eric uber is stuck in this situation where you can have privacy or safety but you might not be able to have both. There is a sense that uber wants to look at videos, voices in the car. These are all areas, where uber says, ok, you are worried about safety we can take away privacy and give you more safety. On the policy side, that will be the big debate around uber going forward, just because they will take hits both ways. It is a question of how much people expect uber to oversee a given ride versus we are matching you with the driver and what happens is between you and the driver. Clearly, people think that uber needs to police those rides. That means rolling out some kind of surveillance. s to keep track of whats going on when youre in the car with that driver. Emily that was bloombergs eric newcomer. Health decisions have affected ubers competitors come up with rival orloff starting service in london within weeks. The indian Ride Hailing Company backed by softbank says it has already served millions of customers in other u. K. Cities since last year. To discuss the competition, i spoke to i spoke to two guests. There have been a number of issues over the years with transport for london. The most serious is the impersonation of drivers by about 15,000. So they dont have security in place to verify driver is who they say they are. They were asked to use facial recognition technology. They did not implement it in the timeframe they were supposed to and have once again have their licenses suspended. They are going to appeal that and i imagine it will go through the courts. The real question is how soon will this actually take affect on the streets. Taylor i want to pose the same question to you about how long it will take to impact the companys fundamentals. That all depends on what happens in the courts. In the nearterm, they should be kind of operating business as usual as it goes through the appeal process. If they actually lose a license, you will see a real impact to revenue. We estimate maybe 5 of total revenue. The larger question and the more longterm question would be what happens with competitors as they come in and try to take share and leverage off this opportunity. Taylor where do you see that Competitive Landscape . Gabe at the end of the day, uber has built an incredible product, a great marketplace. However, it is a commodity at this point. In the u. S. , most of the drivers that drive for uber or lyft, but for the consumer, they want a ride. I dont think they necessarily care who provides it. The issue for uber is they have been on the outs with municipal governments increasingly the last few years. We thought it would change with the new ceo, and instead they sort of doubled down on these disruptive tactics with local governments. I think we are seeing it play out and a real hit here in how government will deal with uber and Companies Like them. Taylor i want to show you a chart at gtv , showing the stock price is trading 30 a share. Most analysts on the street are bullish and have a 44 price target, which would be a gain from the current price. How much of london, other regulatory hostilities we see, are starting to impact yours views on the stock . It is deftly not making it easier. It is definitely not making it easier. It has been definitely impacting the stock price. Its not just london, it is happening in california. This could be a really serious security threat. Drivers impersonating other drivers, drivers driving without licenses to do so, so it could be a real risk. Other cities could start taking a look at this, too. When does the Regulatory Environment ease up on uber . It is up to uber to address those issues more seriously, address those security threats and put them behind them. It has been happening way too often for uber in the first six to nine months as a public company. Ultimately, we think they will be back in london. There will be a meaningful player. It is a big market. They can navigate these waters and end up in a better position. That will be a big test for them going forward. Taylor is regulatory issues the biggest headwind for the stock . Ygal it is one of them. Competition and regulatory issues are the two big challenges. Competition is driving down, pricing is one of the biggest issues in terms of profitability. That is a big factor over the longterm. Regulatory things keep popping up. The bigger they become, the more they will weigh on the shares. Taylor that was gabe and our guest. Coming up, the eu competition commissioner Margaret Vestager says the organization will continue to investigate amazon, apple, and facebook. That, plus her comments on a digital tax. And if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. This is bloomberg. A taylor the eus antitrust chief Margaret Vestager has made a name for herself as a tough regulator unafraid to go after big tech. Wednesday, she told bloomberg the eu still pursue a digital tax even if a global push fails. Maria tadeo spoke to her in france where she was asked how europes regulatory posture on tech is different. In the business environment, you find a lot of impressive tech. You find engineers, research, and an impressive startup environment and the willingness to balance possibilities. You are talking about innovation, but we do here the reason we are focused on taxation is because we have not seen real innovation in europe. Is that fair . Absolutely not. What is fair is to say to the many businesses in europe that not just some of them should contribute but every company should contribute where they do excellent business. That is the bottom line in europe. You do very Good Business here. When would that be . Is that something where you think, if by the end of 2020, theres no International Agreement on digital taxation that it would be fair for the eu to go it alone . Yes, of course it would. We are strong believers in a global agreement i am happy to see the progress made by the oecd. Is a very strong push. And there is positive feedback on the first draft. Of course, that would be the better solution. But if that cannot be met, when you look at the businesses who pay their taxes, it would only be fair that we pick it up again if a Global Solution is not possible. Based on what you hear now from the oecd, this time there is momentum to get this done. We have been here many times at have not seen progress made. Normally, i would not be optimistic when it comes to taxation, but i think now there is a momentum, theres a deeper understanding that we have to update corporate taxation to digital times. And in that respect, the Global Dialogue is changing. We also heard today from the Eu Commission president that data is key for the commission, but it can be weaponized. What is the message to protect consumer data and europe and how you deal with that . First and foremost, we are going to make a comprehensive strategy. For ai, data is the main input. Data is more than a commodity. It is also what defines us as people and digital ages. We have taken a number of steps. With the Digital Citizen rights. We have a lot of public data that has been made available we need a comprehensive strategy for data to be the driving force for a prosperous european economy and a green commission. And what timeline are you looking at . This has to be thoughtful. It ties in with what we are planning to do with Artificial Intelligence and the two things will have to come together. For people to see the full scope of what data can do, we have to make a specific strategy when it comes to data. Taylor that was the eus competition commissioner Margaret Vestager. And the Third Quarter approved a strong one for the Communication Services sector came to topline performance. But the top line was telling us a different story with earningspershare growth relatively muted. On tuesday, i wrote down those earnings and talked with an rbc analyst. A couple of the companies that were getting deeper into investment mode, the one at the top of the list would be amazon. They may have surprised because they are doubling down on this one day investment. That is an expensive investment. I think there is a more interesting story at the other side of the curve. We saw a couple of companies that brought forward their profitability timelines. Uber and lyft. Snapchat is just about print its first positive ebitda quarter. Pinterest, too. I was struck by the positive inflection points rather than the negative ones. Taylor lets get into those. You brought up lyft and uber. Are you fully confident that 2021 targets are intact . Mark no. I think they have a high probability of getting by insurance costs. It is a big expense for those companies. I think they also have pricing power. I think these companies, as private companies, were run really inefficiently, really aggressively, more growth, which means a lot of wasteful spending. Bring them public, public investors step in and say, we need profits. The management teams are responding to that. Theres a lot of room to take out excess cost without sacrificing growth. We have seen that the last two or three quarters. My guess is we will continue to see that and then become more confident in 2021 profitability. Taylor how much of a hit for uber was the london news this week where they temporarily did not get their license renewed . That is a big issue. Tbd. I want to be careful here. I dont think they have been kicked out of london. This has happened to them before when have had the license threatened. They will appeal the decision, be able to continue to operate for a couple of months. I assume there will be able to work it out with the london powers that be, the taxi commissions. There is no question that uber and lyft have taken on big taxi in a number of markets. Consumers have shown they like ridesharing services. I assume consumers in london will speak up on this too. It is not over yet. They have not been kicked out yet. My guess is that, as happened about a year ago, they will stay in the market, they will just have to work on more concessions. Taylor ebay is selling to a european rival for more than 4 billion in cash. We have details. Plus, alibabas big day. We head to hong kong for the debut. Taylor we got more details of ebays stubhub sale as they unload the ticket marketplace to rival via gogo for 4 billion in cash. I got the details from leanna baker and jitendra waral. Via gogo is not a household name in the u. S. They are in 70 Countries Worldwide and they want an entry into the u. S. Market. It is one of the fastestgrowing ticket markets out there. They really are paying up about 4 billion but they brought in some investors. It is a homecoming. Eric baker, the founder of viagogo, was one of the founders of stubhub. But he left before it sold, originally, to ebay. Taylor eric baker has talked a lot about making this a global company. He was excited about reuniting these two. Bringing together his global ambitions. Is that really the play here as viagogo gets the u. S. Market and stubhub can have a global reach as well . Liana that is the strategy because viagogo is not really present in the market here. It is a fragmented industry. There are many competitors, some even trying to bid on the business. The stubhub founders have really gone out and founded a lot of Companies Going after that market. It is going to be competitive. Viagogo coming in with stubhub has a good chance with having a good brand with consumers. Ebay was under pressure to sell this so, clearly, it was not fitting in and it was looking for other avenues. Taylor you cover ebay for us, so i want to get your take. A lot of analysts came out and said this deal would be unlocking a lot of value for ebay. What is your analysis . Jitendra it buys them time to fix the core marketplace, which was going to take time. They have to come up with a sustainable strategy. It can help fuel Profit Growth. It also increases the imperative on other other asset sales scenarios. Other restructuring avenues. Looking at cost structure for ebay, there is more room for operating expenses to go down. At least that is in their control. Their fight with the likes of amazon and coming next year with facebook entering the ecommerce market, we still dont have an answer yet. We are still waiting for the ceo. And a strategy on that. At least it buys them time to drive that Profit Growth. Taylor in your years of covering this company, why havent they been able to keep up with amazon . What has been the biggest headwind . Jitendra the biggest headwind really has been the muscle memory developed with its consumers through prime. It has helped them drive forward and increase loyalty and things like that. Ebay has missed out on that opportunity for a while now. Once you sort of lose share over there, it is harder to get mind share more than market share. Mind share shifts and market share shifts along with it. The opportunity in front of ebay now is to focus on things in front of them like advertising, payments. I think this restructuring, it is certainly buying them time. If you look at the valuation for the company, it is reflecting that topline slowdown. We are beginning to see ebay more as a Profit Growth story than a Revenue Growth story. Longerterm, the strategy if they focus on verticals, the partnership with the upcoming ecommerce players and become the backend of the engine. They wait and see but, at least for now, there is the opportunity for Profit Growth. Taylor i was hearing about 25 times ebit. Are there any calls that this may have been an expensive purchase . Liana ebay has been working with Goldman Sachs for many months to find the highest bidder. From what we understand, it was pretty competitive at the end. I mentioned, they were competing with other private equity firms so different firms really wanted this asset. That really drove the price above 4 billion, which was higher than what we expected. We thought it would sell for between 3 billion and 4 billion. Viagogo had to bring on other investors to fund this because viagogo is a private company and not wellknown so they had to get funding from jp morgan and others to make this happen. Taylor that was bloombergs leanna baker. Coming up, tuesday was a banner day for alibaba. Shares began trading in hong kong, ending the day more than 6 above the listing price. And Bloomberg Technology is a livestreaming on twitter. Check us out and be sure to follow our global breaking news network on twitter. This is bloomberg. Taylor welcome back to the best of Bloomberg Technology, i am taylor riggs. Alibaba made its trading debut on the Hong Kong Exchange this week. The chinese ecommerce giant pulled off the biggest share sale in nearly a decade, raising 11 billion. Alibaba plans to use the funds to drive