U.S. judge says Uber withheld evidence, delays Waymo trial

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-uber-ruling/u-s-judge-says-uber-withheld-evidence-delays-waymo-trial-idUSKBN1DS26X

by AnimalMuppet • 9 years ago

344 138 9 years ago

reuters.com

AnimalMuppet7• 9 years ago

Not much detail yet. I'm hoping for some more as time goes by...

jaclaz• 9 years ago

Not much detail yet. I'm hoping for some more as time goes by...

This has ben just posted with some more details:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15799737

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-Waymo-case-...

olympus4• 9 years ago

Can a judge hold a company in contempt and fine them for disobeying a judge? Even if Uber isn't guilty of stealing IP from Waymo they have certainly been less than forthcoming. I'm sure that Waymo has done some shady stuff too. If a person withholds evidence or obstructs a case a judge can throw them in jail. What's the equivalent stick that the judge has to compel a corporation?

awalton2• 9 years ago

"I'm sure that Waymo has done some shady stuff too."

Please point us to the memo from Uber that proves Waymo is operating a "Competitive Intelligence" team that looks more like a CIA Ops team than a Business Intelligence unit. I'll wait.

This "2017 and there's Bad Guys on Both Sides" bullshit needs to die.

bllguo• 9 years ago

Seriously, what's with this widespread assumption that because there are two sides, they must be relatively equal? The amount of harm this absurd belief has caused is immeasurable.

linkregister5• 9 years ago

Why would a wholly-owned subsidiary that has no commercial products need a Business Intelligence arm? Of course Waymo doesn't have anything like that.

"shady stuff" != "competitive intelligence team"

EnFinlay• 9 years ago

I hear you. If I'm understanding you properly, you're just saying "Waymo has done some shady stuffy too" to establish that you're not a fanatical "yay Waymo boo Uber" person and are willing to see fault regardless of which side it's on.

olympus4• 9 years ago

Wow my comment was gravely misinterpreted it seems. I was asking if Alsup could fine Uber for their bad behavior. Normally a judge would throw a person in jail for contempt but you can't do that with a corporation. You can be held in contempt regardless of the outcome of the trial- i.e., even if Uber isn't found guilty would/could Alsup still fine them for slowing the trial down?

The part that seems to have been misinterpreted was the extra comment about Waymo. I was trying to head off the eventual comment where someone said that Waymo hadn't played 100% fairly either (it's possible, they have lawyers too). I'm not saying that Waymo is bad, I was just trying to head off someone bringing up some sort of "both sides are doing it, so why not fine both sides" argument.

AnimalMuppet7• 9 years ago

You can jail executives for the bad behavior of a corporation. (I know of one case where executives of a medical device corporation were trying to ignore the FDA, and the US Marshalls marched them out the door in handcuffs. Not even the door of a courtroom - they arrested them at their office.)

jacksmith21006• 9 years ago

What is the world did Waymo do that was shady here? Put something like that out there kind of need to back it up with something?

thisisit2• 9 years ago

The trial seems to be ongoing right now, live tweets can be found here:

https://twitter.com/CSaid

But this doesn't look good for Uber at all:

https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935558449324212230

“Jacobs became aware that Uber thru Clark & Henley, had a sophisticated strategy to conceal, cover up or destroy docs w intent to impede govt investigations."

and

https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935569588309327878

"Judge quotes Jacob's atty letter: Uber employees went to Pittsburgh to educate the AV group about ephemeral, encrypted communications "to prevent Uber's unlawful schemes from seeing the light of day""

I have seen people wonder on HN whether Uber gets flak due to their nature or are they inherently worse than other giants. While other companies are no saints the constant stream of stupid decisions makes it seem that Uber has (had?) a culture of always trying to find shady way of doing things.

vkou2• 9 years ago

“Jacobs became aware that Uber thru Clark & Henley, had a sophisticated strategy to conceal, cover up or destroy docs w intent to impede govt investigations."

What does that even mean?

Does this mean that all Uber employees have been trained to 'communicate carefully', that their e-mails get deleted after X months, and that sensitive conversations that could hypothetically, and out of context, be held in person, as opposed to electronically?

If that's all it does, I would like to remind everyone - that's the kind of training that everyone in any Fortune 500 company receives.

"Judge quotes Jacob's atty letter: Uber employees went to Pittsburgh to educate the AV group about ephemeral, encrypted communications "to prevent Uber's unlawful schemes from seeing the light of day""

Which parts of that are verbatim?

If someone who went through that training actually put the words 'our unlawful schemes' in an e-mail... Well, they are a complete idiot.

If it were anyone but Uber, this would be too comically inept to be true.

thisisit2• 9 years ago

The article relaying the whole communication has been published:

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-Waymo-case-...

The unit acquired leaked code from competitors via Github, dug up information on overseas drivers and researched global competitors, he said. While he didn’t believe that work was illegal, “I had questions about the ethics of it,” Jacobs testified.
Tactics included use of attorney-client privilege on written documents, and encrypted, ephemeral communications.
It also used “non-attributable devices” to communicate with third parties providing on-the-ground intelligence about threats to Uber, and to research Uber protestors, he testified.

awalton2• 9 years ago

From SFChronical: http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-Waymo-case-...

While he didn’t believe that work was illegal, “I had questions about the ethics of it,” Jacobs testified.
He confirmed that Uber used encrypted, ephemeral messaging “to protect sensitive information and ensure we didn’t create a paper trail that would come back to haunt the company in any potential criminal or civil litigation.” It also used “non-attributable devices” to communicate with third parties providing on-the-ground intelligence about threats to Uber, and to research Uber protestors, he testified.

...sound like "Just another Fortune 500" to you?

dsfyu404ed• 9 years ago

Does this mean that all Uber employees have been trained to 'communicate carefully', that their e-mails get deleted after X months, and that sensitive conversations that could hypothetically, and out of context, be held in person, as opposed to electronically?
If that's all it does, I would like to remind everyone - that's the kind of training that everyone in any Fortune 500 company receives.

Both of the Fortune 500 companies I've worked for have also followed that up with something to the tune of "and if you don't want it quoted in the New York times you should think about why you're discussing it in the first place."

Retric3• 9 years ago

Having worked at multiple large companies I can say this is unusual behavior. Most companies want to maintain a paper trail to defend their actions because on average it's a net gain, not assume their actions are problematic and by default remove all evidence as soon as possible.

ouid2• 9 years ago

this is so downvoted that I can't even read it.

leggomylibro• 9 years ago

I think that most companies have 'N-month email retention policies', where N is somewhere between 1-6.

Did the malfeasance happen more than a few months ago? Gee, sorry, no internal communications; that's policy. Did someone keep incriminating communications from more than a few months ago? Oooh, that's against policy - the recalcitrant employee has since been terminated and clearly does not represent our lofty ideals.

But I don't think that most companies go out of their way to use encrypted platforms to shield communications which they know are likely illegal from investigators.

patmcguire• 9 years ago

For Google, at least, I believe it's 18 months. And that's quite new, it happened after the Oracle fiasco, which had all sorts of goodies like:

Subject: Java class libraries

With talks with Sun broken off[,] where does that leave us regarding Java class libraries? Ours are half-ass at best. We need another half of an ass.

That came out in discovery.

chkuendig• 9 years ago

I keep hearing this here, but AFAIK there's plenty of record keeping regulation which won't allow for that. No?

I assume many companies auto-clean the user-facing mailboxes for different reasons, but they probably all are required to archive the emails on some type of long-term storage for a few years.

But maybe that's just industry-specific regulations...

AnimalMuppet7• 9 years ago

But a lawsuit changes that. You don't get to delete stuff that's relevant to the lawsuit, no matter what your retention policy is.

ggcdn• 9 years ago

structural engineers are required to keep all communications, notes, etc for seven to ten years, depending on the jurisdiction.

These super short email retention policies seem extremely unethical to me.

cpitman• 9 years ago

These policies go two ways. Companies need to be able to delete data eventually, but they also need to make sure that employees are not deleting data on their own in order to hide illegal activity. Having a retention policy of X months then cuts both ways. If you delete data before 18 months, well that looks awfully suspicious.

pmorici• 9 years ago

Prior to even being sued the opposing sides lawyer can give you notice of a possible lawsuit and it is your responsibility to not destroy any documents related to it regardless of your companies retention policies.

pfarnsworth2• 9 years ago

If you look at CSaid's twitter stream, it looks a lot better for Uber now and Waymo looks like it might be in the judge's crosshairs.

tacomonstrous2• 9 years ago

Are you sure she didn't just mistype? There's nothing that supports Waymo being in trouble.

bm1362• 9 years ago

I use Keybase, Signal, even Snapchat daily. I wonder if a lawyer could pervert that into ‘shady’ behavior.

saulrh2• 9 years ago

If you suffix that sentence with "...so the IRS will have trouble taking me to court for money-laundering", the lawyer wouldn't even have to "pervert" it. Privacy is not suspicious. Privacy with the explicit, stated intent of concealing illegal behavior is perfectly reasonably suspicious. Similarly - I would not bat an eye at the average car purchase, but I would think hard if someone asked me to recommend a car that would not be damaged if it hit someone. I would not give a friend access to my computer if they said they were going to use it to send spam email. Etc.

This isn't about the privacy tech. This is about Uber being evil, knowing that they are doing evil, and trying to hide their evil from the courts. The fact that they worked at a high level to hide their evil destroys any pretense that it was accidental or unintentional.

revelation3• 9 years ago

Is there a transcript available yet? I love Alsups no-nonsense attitude and reading those are always great entertainment. Not to mention it's a primary source :)

gpm5• 9 years ago

I'm pretty sure it's still going on (so no), both https://twitter.com/kateconger and https://twitter.com/CSaid are live tweeting.

florean6• 9 years ago

Unfortunately, @CSaid mistakenly used Waymo instead of Uber in a few places, but she did have an interesting tidbit I haven't seen in any of the subsequent articles[0]: the former employee of Uber claimed that he was reprimanded in a performance review and then demoted for "not protecting more info from discovery." How is that not a huge deal?

[0] https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935573560461967360

trowawee• 9 years ago

Welp. Someone has committed perjury today. https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935584091990138881

"Russo is on the stand now. He says that Jacobs' statement about recruiting inside sources at competitors is false."

internetman55• 9 years ago

When did some of these of prominent tech people begin thinking that acting like psychopaths was the way to achieve business success?

tlarkworthy• 9 years ago

That's the reward structure of Big Capatalism. I don't think it's a tech thing. It's the enormous pyramid structure of large corps. Psychopaths are good at promotion.

WC3w6pXxgGd• 9 years ago

"Big Capatalism"

That's a new one.

watwut• 9 years ago

They became prominent, because such behavior is rewarded and praised.

potatolicious• 9 years ago

When they successfully popularized the narrative of Founder-as-Ubermensch, as modern-day titans tirelessly hauling human progress forward.

And conversely, the narrative that those with grievance against startups or their actions are anti-progress, that opposition to a tech startup means you're either stupid or corrupt.

When you're operating under the notion that what you're doing will literally move the human race forward, it becomes very easy to rationalize things that don't pass a simple smell test. Surely a bit of minor illegality is acceptable when you're going to Change The World(tm)?

I for one am glad to see this lie finally being challenged en masse.

It's unclear to me still how much of Startup/Founder Mythology was intended for PR purposes, and how much did startup execs end up believing for themselves.

__jal• 9 years ago

It's unclear to me still how much of Startup/Founder Mythology was intended for PR purposes, and how much did startup execs end up believing for themselves.

Why choose? For a while, everyone who counted won - execs, investors, ibankers, even some of the workers, some of the time - when the rubes bought the line.

But eventually it starts causing problems - like when the rubes start actually expecting accountability. If you're the, ahem, ubermench, then you are also at fault when you screw up, as much as the Kalanicks of the world try to weasel, bully or deflect.

The sooner this bullshit dies, the sooner we can behave like a somewhat sane industry.

anigbrowl• 9 years ago

As teenagers when they developed a crush on Ayn Rand, I'd guess.

tryingagainbro• 9 years ago

Well it worked for them, they're worth at least $50B (Softbank wants to buy shares at that price.)

They might have to pay a few billion in fines or damages but that's all. New CEO will apologize and we'll forget it. And that is because they got caught...

Not defending them, just saying in many cases these tactics work.

icebraining2• 9 years ago

Uber is just trying to fit in the taxi industry:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/nyregion/taxi-king-is-cha...

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/taxi-king-nyc-sexually-h...

majani• 9 years ago

"Apologize rather than ask for permission" has always been a common mantra in tech. It's just that with Uber it's a freelancer marketplace so they're dealing with actual people instead of just data, which magnifies their actions. If you could take the time to make a wider observation, you'll find that online freelance marketplaces are generally lightning rods for hate

wpietri• 9 years ago

Has it been? I was around for Bubble 1.0 and I don't recall the level of brazen lawlessness we're seeing with Uber.

TheTechnician• 9 years ago

I hope they go hard on them. I hate the way in the US it's just become expected that everyone is corrupt as hell.

nolok• 9 years ago

Did I get this right ? They got the letter because some one from a 3rd company CC'ed Waymo instead of Uber on an email containing that letter (the one that 1. Claims Uber did some nasty things and 2. Uber didn't submit as evidence as if it didn't exists) ?

That's either one hell of a fuck up, or someone took as big a stand as they could

ehsankia• 9 years ago

Wasn't that how they initially found out about uber stealing their trade secret? When the LADAR manufacturer accidentally emailed Google instead of Uber?

amsilprotag• 9 years ago

In its filing, Waymo said it was inadvertently copied on an email from one of its suppliers with drawings of Uber’s circuit board design for its lidar technology, short for light detection and ranging, ” that are laser-based sensors used in self-driving cars. Waymo said Uber’s design bore “a striking resemblance” to its proprietary and highly secret design and infringed on Waymo’s patents.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/technology/google-self-dr...

florean6• 9 years ago

Judge Alsup got the letter because the US Attorney's office passed it along to him. I haven't seen anything about how the US Attorney obtained it, but presumably criminal prosecution and subpoenas provide a greater disincentive to lying than civil suits. Also, there were two parties who would have had this letter: Uber and the lawyer(s) who wrote the letter on behalf of the former Uber employee. Unlike Uber, those attorneys would have little incentive to be anything but transparent.

florean6• 9 years ago

Oh, now we know how the USA got it: https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935912822478794752. Uber "voluntarily disclosed the Jacobs letter" because Jacobs threatened to involuntarily disclose it. However, Uber tried to hide it in this case (despite it/Jacobs mentioning Waymo); the USA gave it to Judge Alsup because he had initially recommended the case for criminal investigation and they thought he might find it relevant in his trial. At this point, Uber has lied so consistently it seems like they should forfeit their opportunity to offer testimony. I wonder if the judge will allow any of this to be brought up with the jury.

Fricken• 9 years ago

This whole time I've been asking where is Uber in really deep shit? So here you go, Drogans, there could be some deep shit flooding out from Uber's septic tank. And the Trial is delayed again, at Judge Alsup's request. This whole time Alsup has been like 'let's get this on with already'. Now he's pushing back the trial date based on what the DOJ showed him behind a closed door. Now here's a weird thing. Larry Page has 3 flying car companies, and he funds them all himself. One of them is Kitty Hawk, of which Sebastien Thrun is CEO. Anthony Levandowski has worked for Kittyhawk, but I'm having a hard time figuring out if Levandowski was doing work for Kitty Hawk after he left Waymo, but it's possible he did. Larry Page also has a secret Flying car company called Tiramisu[1]:

A motion filed last month by Uber to force Google's self-driving car spinoff company Waymo to provide witnesses on a range of topics reveals the existence of Tiramisu.
The company is listed as relevant to an ongoing Uber-Google self-driving car spat because it alleges that Anthony Levandowski, the engineer accused of stealing lidar and other technical secrets from his workplace at Google's self-driving car project and taking them to Uber, may have been working for the company in his free time.

Now, in the Depositions of Larry Page and Travis Kalanick, it had been revealed that they had been in talks about Flying Cars, or VTOL aircraft. Possibly you recall when Uber dropped the white paper for Uber Elevate[2]. Uber has been talking about flying cars in the news, and has forecast 2020[3] as the year they reveal or deploy some kind of autonomous vertical take off and landing taxi.

So there is possibility that Uber and Larry Page are involved together in some way in Tiramisu. If true, there is also a possibility that Sebastien Thrun and Anthony Levandowski have both been involved. And as an extension of that, there is the possibility that they've already been using Waymo's top-secret technology in flying autonomous vehicles for Tiramisu for years. This increases the liklihood that Page may have known about the Otto stunt before it happened.

Alsup I think just learned about all this from the DOJ. Something is going on there with Tiramisu that screws everything up.

[1]https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/433maw/larry-page...

[2]https://www.uber.com/info/elevate/

[3]https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/8/16613228/uber-flying-car-...

swang2• 9 years ago

okay someone tell me if i missed anything uber has done...

* trying to dredge up dirt on journalist for being negative towards the company.

* kalanik denies that an incident involving a uber driver choking a passenger ever happened.

* kalanik boasting that he should have called the company "boober" from all the women he gets

* offering customers rides with "hot chicks" in france.

* having a "god view" that employees used to spy on exes, politicians and celebrities. they paid a measly $20k fine and supposedly continue to still allow employees to use god view.

* kalanik took people out to a escort bar in south korea (on company dime)

* created a greyball program, to try and avoid authorities from getting a ride and hide their wrong doings from city officials

* had a high level uber executive go into india and get the medical records of a rape victim and held onto those records for no good reason. oh yeah he also showed those records to kalanik and another executive and wasn't fired on the spot for it. they literally didn't fire him after their initial "cleaning up" of the company until news outlets started sniffing around

* ignored california's dmv and started putting self-driving cars onto the road, one of which decided to run a red light. then tried to pass off the issue as, "human error"

* paid off hackers to delete user data. did not notify proper authorities

* sexual harassment / toxic workplace issues

--------- and now ---------

* withholding evidence from a trial

* using ephemeral messages so they dont leave a paper trail

* allegedly denied areas from service by redlining them

Analemma_• 9 years ago

It's the Trump strategy: do sleazy and illegal things at such a high rate that no one can keep up with the firehose. They know apologists will bamboozle the public by taking each instance in isolation and going "it's no big deal", and it works because no one has enough working memory to keep the whole picture in their head at once and be appropriately outraged enough.

SilasX3• 9 years ago

I can'd find anything about Uber redlining -- what story are you referring to there?

swang2• 9 years ago

one of the reporters who was in the courtroom from the testimony of richard jacobs:

https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935575268160180224

"That’s to say we could lower the operating costs by identifying high threat areas where crime takes place... help the company avoid those areas."

beedogs3• 9 years ago

And yet they inexplicably enjoy solid support here. They're one of the dirtiest companies in the tech industry, and people, for some reason, can't seem to get enough of them.

rifung• 9 years ago

My cynicism leads me to believe it's because tech is (now?) more about making money and less about ethics or making cool stuff.

jliptzin• 9 years ago

sounds like kalanik should run for president

warcher2• 9 years ago

White collar tech bros will not hold up under investigation. A ivy-league mba has way too much to lose to risk going to jail over some stock options. Doing this kind of dirt can only survive via staying under the radar-- somebody is gonna flip and this whole house of cards is gonna go down in a stampede of Uber employees rushing to drop the dime on each other.

icebraining2• 9 years ago

This is a civil lawsuit. Why would anyone go to jail?

warcher2• 9 years ago

Cause this stuff is illegal and high profile. And Uber has been skating if not nakedly flaunting the law for a long time now. If the DA starts sniffing, people are going to start talking.

Furthermore, the odds of the leaks continuing approach certainty at this point. Even in a civil trial, who would perjure themselves over a job? (Pleading the fifth is a potential option even in a civil case, but is real problematic and probably will make a criminal investigation even more likely.)

gpm5• 9 years ago

The judge has referred it to the US attorney (prosecutor) for possible criminal prosecution. The big new piece of evidence today (the letter) was given to the judge by the US attorney as relevant evidence they have found. So there is clearly an ongoing criminal investigation into the same thing.

scott_karana• 9 years ago

Evidence of criminal activities could become apparent during a civil trial, and lead to subsequent criminal charges.

Plus perjury, etc.

woodandsteel• 9 years ago

"The letter said an organization within Uber called marketplace analytics “exists expressly for the purpose for acquiring trade secrets, code base and competitive intelligence.”

That sure sounds like illegal activity, in fact lots and lots of it.

huac• 9 years ago

A ivy-league mba has way too much to lose to risk going to jail over some stock options.

And yet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Rajaratnam and co

saas_co_de2• 9 years ago

Ultimately the engineers who created these tools can be help criminally culpable if they knew or should have known that the tools they were creating were intended for an illegal purpose.

It isn't the kind of thing that is likely to get charged but certainly something that investigators can use to put pressure on low level employees and get them to testify against their bosses.

Uber has pissed off a lot of people so don't underestimate the "karma" that they have coming to them. Lots up people lining up to piss on their grave while laughing heartily.

josefrichter• 9 years ago

is there anyone in that company who's not an asshole? the lack of any culture there is appalling.

jacquesm4• 9 years ago

They have a culture. Just not a very good one.

euyyn• 9 years ago

One of the nicest, shyest, and most polite persons I've worked with left Google for Uber a couple years ago. So I can assure they've got great people too, apart from the shady ones that make the news.

paul7986• 9 years ago

And Uber wants this trial to be heard by a jury? Are they stupid or they can’t settle this out of court without Waymo owing their ass?

I mean almost weekly in the press the public hears about how horrible Uber is and is operated.

Maybe the jury will be all older ppl and those who don’t have smartphones.

valine• 9 years ago

I think you’re overestimating how much the general public cares about Uber. The scandals haven’t negatively affected Uber financials, I doubt they will have an impact on the trial.

saas_co_de2• 9 years ago

haven’t negatively affected Uber financials

SoftBank share purchase discounts Uber by 30%

https://www.ft.com/content/2a2131e0-d3ef-11e7-a303-9060cb1e5...

NelsonMinar• 9 years ago

It never fucking ends with this company, does it?

beedogs3• 9 years ago

I hope Google/Alphabet end up owning Uber after this trial. Then they can shut it down.

a3n• 9 years ago

I indulged in a bit of forward-fantasy, imagining an eventual death penalty for Uber.

The objection to a corporate death penalty is usually "but what about the employees?"

Well, what about them? The desk-workers are mostly in high demand, no problem.

And the drivers ... well, I see lots of Lyft and Uber stickers on the same cars. If there's no Uber in town, Uber users will likely use Lyft.

Is that an unseen danger for corporations in the "sharing" economy? Your employees are portable by definition?

This got me also thinking, why isn't there a two way auction for ride sharing, with companies competing to "sponsor" the ride, and drivers competing to drive the ride, and on the other side, customers competing to buy a ride. Or just cut out the Uber/Lyft middlemen and have independent drivers compete?

Is it too soon to "Fix Ride Sharing!"?

beager2• 9 years ago

Real-time bidding for ride sharing would be pretty cool, across any number of services and independents. A regulatory mess for sure, but as we're seeing, the extant players already constitute a regulatory mess.

skgoa• 9 years ago

Exchanges for distributed bidding exist for financial securities. It's a bit of an IT hassle, but not an unsolved problem.

U.S. judge says Uber withheld evidence, delays Waymo trial

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