We Can't Trust Uber

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/opinion/we-cant-trust-uber.html

by applecore • 12 years ago

318 126 12 years ago

mehwoot• 12 years ago

according to The Washington Post, the company was so lax about such sensitive data that it even allowed a job applicant to view people’s rides, including those of a family member of a prominent politician.

worries me a lot more than

a 2012 post on the company’s blog that boasted of how Uber had tracked the rides of users who went somewhere other than home on Friday or Saturday nights, and left from the same address the next morning.

Obviously Uber has this sort of data, and it can use it in various aggregated ways. What's more important than demonstrations of what information they could pull out of this is how serious they are about protecting it from access, either from people who want to buy that information or employees simply snooping around. I don't care if someone uses my data in an aggregate way to do something (e.g. facebook) as long as I am not personally identified.

robbrown4512• 12 years ago

Those two things are very related. Knowledge of people having sexual indiscretions can be very powerful leverage to manipulate politicians (and others) with.

tzmudzin5• 12 years ago

Why would you believe the data was aggregated, and not available in individualized form in the latter case?

nemothekid3• 12 years ago

Because the blog post was publicly posted (and had been available for 2 years before Uber's recent PR trouble), and the data that was presented was on an aggregate level.

If you are asking if the blog poster had access to the individualized data, I imagine he did as he was a data scientist at Uber - but I don't see how that is something to be alarmed about.

roymurdock• 12 years ago

Here's the link: https://web.archive.org/web/20140827195715/http://blog.uber....

The problem that most people have with the article is the creepy tone ("I know which of you are fooling around and where") rather than an actual leak of information on individual users.

sillysaurus33• 12 years ago

Uber argues that it’s doing only what other technology companies regularly do. That may be true but it only underlines why we need oversight mechanisms that cover all of them.

Such as?

If you're giving your data freely to companies, I don't understand what kind of oversight mechanism could or should protect you.

Imagine a hypothetical oversight mechanism, then imagine the consequences to tech companies. Imagine the consequences to startups. Not Uber; I'm talking about tiny, early-stage startups.

Airbnb and Dropbox have enriched my life. I'd hate for regulatory burden to prevent such startups from forming in the first place.

This isn't a hypothetical concern. The finance industry is so regulated that you can't easily form a finance startup without having a lot of connections or a lot of money. Same for the healthcare sector, as far as I've heard.

rurounijones• 12 years ago

If you're giving your data freely to companies

You are assuming people understand this and the implications.

The fact it is buried in a legalese ToS somewhere doesn't mean people know what information is sent and how it will be used.

sillysaurus33• 12 years ago

This is dodging the question. Again: What oversight mechanism can possibly protect users from themselves? They're sending this data, whether they understand it or not.

People keep advocating that drug use should be an educational / health issue, not a legal issue. It's ironic that in this situation, people are calling for the opposite: For the government to step in and protect them, when it's unclear how the government can help without causing all kinds of unintended consequences.

This should be an educational issue, not a legal issue. We should educate users about the ramifications of uploading this data.

Remember, if we enforce regulation, users will still upload sensitive data, and the government will still be free to take advantage of it. Whereas if users are educated about what data they upload, then the data won't exist to begin with.

Spooky23• 12 years ago

Hate to say it, but too bad. These companies come around bragging about how they are going to disrupt <insert target>, and push off the mess they create on some hapless schlub in most cases.

Well, fuck them. It is always a few bad apples that ruin things for the rest.

smacktoward2• 12 years ago

If you're giving your data freely to companies, I don't understand what kind of oversight mechanism could or should protect you.

"If you're taking patent medicines freely, I don't understand what kind of oversight mechanism could or should protect you."

"If you're eating tainted meat freely, I don't understand what kind of oversight mechanism could or should protect you."

"If you're driving on roads used by other drivers in poorly maintained cars freely, I don't understand what kind of oversight mechanism could or should protect you."

Etc. etc. etc.

brandonmenc• 12 years ago

You suggest three scenarios where death is a far more likely consequence of poor regulation than in the case of surrendering personal data.

We'd rather have drugs that don't kill people more than we want the ability to start drug companies in our garages. The same probably can't be said for software companies and guaranteed total privacy.

Hence the not understanding what a valid mechanism could be that satisfies society.

sdrothrock6• 12 years ago

If you're giving your data freely to companies, I don't understand what kind of oversight mechanism could or should protect you.

This argument doesn't make much sense to me.

What if I said,

If you're giving your money freely to banks, I don't understand what kind of oversight mechanism could or should protect you.

I think the crux of the issue is that if I get a car ride with Uber, I have a reasonable expectation that I am paying for the service of a car ride. There is no reasonable expectation on my part that I'm giving them money for a car ride AND ALSO giving them the information about me/my ride to use freely, regardless of what the TOS may say.

The expectation on the customer's part is that ride remain private, much like anything that goes on in the doctor's office. The reality, of course, does not match that expectation, which is why I think there should be some hypothetical oversight mechanism that manages the differences between the customer's expectation and Uber's reality.

Just because Uber has data on me doesn't mean that I have given it to them to do whatever they want with it.

sillysaurus33• 12 years ago

I'd like to be clear that I totally agree with you: data given to a service you pay for should remain private.

All I'm saying is that if you enact regulation to try to enforce this, you're going to cause a lot of unintended consequences. It may even prevent the Airbnb's and Dropbox's of the future from forming altogether.

Are you sure adding another law is the right response?

yummyfajitas2• 12 years ago

Yesterday, myself and a woman I'm not married to paid for transportation. We are both quite identifiable, being a very tall white guy and a black woman taller than most men (in Delhi we stand out). Do I have a reasonable expectation that my rickshaw driver will not tell his buddies about this?

As far as I know, doctor/patient confidentiality is the exception - you have no expectation of privacy anywhere else.

AnthonyMouse3• 12 years ago

I upvoted you because a regulatory response is not really appropriate here. This is exactly the sort of thing the government is terrible at and their involvement will do more harm and good.

But that doesn't mean what Uber is doing is appropriate. What we need is a market response. The NY Times is doing it wrong by asking for "oversight" when they should be using their bully pulpit to encourage Uber's customers to demand that Uber stop retaining this information. The press can be as much a check on the market as it is on the government and that's exactly what they need to be here.

Uber isn't Google. You're paying them money. Companies that think they should get your money and your data can go screw.

robbrown4512• 12 years ago

The market doesn't tend to work that way. Maybe some people will avoid Uber when they are actually having that one night stand....but you think significant numbers will boycott the service altogether on principle? I've never known that to work.

woah• 12 years ago

Won't somebody think of the startups!

CaptainZapp• 12 years ago

  If you're giving your data freely to companies, I don't understand what kind of oversight mechanism could or should protect you.

For example:

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/

It does neither hinder you to give private data to companies, nor does it hinder companies to work with your data for the purpose it was submitted.

It does hinder companies to abuse your data for purposes other than the operational use for which it was collected.

yafujifide• 12 years ago

Although I largely agree with the premise, the author assumes that the only way to solve this problem is with government regulation. I think a better way to solve this problem is with decentralization. The problem Uber solves is one of coordination. This does not require a central intermediary like Uber. It could be solved in a decentralized manner with p2p networks. With a decentralized Uber, only you and the driver would know where you started from and where you went. Privacy would be improved.

brador• 12 years ago

Serious question, how would a decentralised system have dealt with the recent uber driver rape case?

pavanred• 12 years ago

To provide some context, an Uber driver was arrested on rape charges in Delhi today. Uber allegedly hired a repeat sex-offender driver without a mandatory police background verification. [1] And, I agree that a decentralized system without any regulation or oversight could probably improve privacy but is definitely not the solution.

[1] http://www.firstpost.com/living/cab-driver-a-repeat-offender...

brohoolio• 12 years ago

I'm not going to use the service. Everything that keeps coming out about Uber has been super shady.

I'm not the only one. Big Uber proponents who I know have stopped using their service.

It's not going to stop the masses, but if stories like this keep coming out without policy fixes they are going to lose their edge. All they are is a dispatch service.

jsprogrammer6• 12 years ago

It seems like Uber could be easily replaced with an open solution. Anyone working on it?

logn2• 12 years ago

I've been noticing that comments advocating P2P replacements of sharing economy apps all get downvotes, and no comments explaining why. I'll assume these downvoters are NSA puppets for now.

jsprogrammer6• 12 years ago

@logn

Not sure the NSA would bother itself with such trivialities. An Uber exec or paid social media expert is the most likely culprit.

Or just your common troll (not that there's much of a difference).

free2rhyme214• 12 years ago

Yes DuckDuckDrive will be out soon lol kidding

nostrademons2• 12 years ago

The hardest part of Uber or any sharing-economy company isn't the technology, it's building the two-sided market. This requires boots on the ground and people who are paid to go out into the community and manually sign up drivers; it's hard to do this unless you have the capital to hire these people.

eridius• 12 years ago

I used to love Uber. But all the stories made me more and more unhappy with using them, even though the service itself continued to be great. This "we could spend a million dollars" boast was the last straw and got me to delete the app from my phone entirely.

Now I use Lyft. I'm not sure if it's the best service. But I can't recall the last time I saw a bad PR story come out about Lyft, so I feel much more comfortable using them than Uber.

Nicholas_C• 12 years ago

I use Lyft every chance I get but a lot of times Uber just has more drivers out that are closer.

Perhaps Lyft has the same problems, but I haven't heard about them.

neilarmslow• 12 years ago

I'm amazed that in all this news coverage, this story hasn't risen to the top. It's far more relevant than the company in question here.

"Buying news coverage and crying misogyny in the ride-sharing industry"

https://medium.com/@PersonofAwesome/buying-news-coverage-and...

FeeTinesAMady• 12 years ago

That article raises some good points, but the problem here is that Uber is really, genuinely awful, and the ones in power there are terrible people. See their fraudent calls to Lyft, the way they lie to drivers about how much money they'll make, etc.

marcus_holmes• 12 years ago

As the article says, this has got almost nothing to do with Uber, and everything to do with a regulatory regime that allows companies to do anything they like with data they collect.

Maybe the USA should start looking at the Data Protection / Privacy laws implemented by Europe and the rest of the world, instead of just dismissing them as socialist welfare-state hippy-dippy bullshit regulation getting in the way of business.

jsprogrammer6• 12 years ago

Better yet, skip all the business and political bullshit and just build the open solution with the appropriate security baked in.

Don't trust businesses, don't trust politicians, trust the code and the process that runs it.

anigbrowl2• 12 years ago

Technology can and will be gamed. So can laws and policies, but but I' think it's naive to assume that social technology that has evolved over thousands of years can be replaced overnight with computer code.

DigitalSea2• 12 years ago

Quite a sensationalist headline. Basically what this article is saying is that Uber have all of this info on where you came from, where you are going and that we should not trust them because they do not have processes in place to ensure users information on trips taken is kept private.

While I do not disagree with the amount of data that Uber have, a company like Facebook and Google arguably know more about us than we do ourselves. Why should we distrust Uber more than any other company? However, I STRONGLY believe that companies with data like Uber should be held accountable to very high standards and any breach of privacy of said data would result in severe penalties. This is not just an Uber problem, this is a big data problem and one many companies have.

I recently quit using Uber in favour of other services like Lyft because I do not believe in Uber's lack of ethics and the way they do business. However, I don't think it is fair they are being targeted as much by the media as they currently are. As much as I dislike Uber, I don't think it is fair to single them out as some lone wolf operating in the wild big data wilderness. We need to be reasonable and stick to the facts, not speculation.

This article really tells us nothing, gives us no true reason other than a single incident (as far as I am aware of) of a privacy breach of a journalists trip to the Uber offices for an interview. There have been other reported incidents of data breaches, but without conclusive evidence, it could just be hearsay.

I am not saying that there is not an issue with companies like Uber and improper practices with data. I am also not denying that Uber have not had incidents where data has been viewed by employees or other reasons, however I am saying there is a lot of false reporting going on at the moment. We need to remain reasonable and non-objective, let the truth and facts speak for themselves. Lets not hate on a company just because everyone else is.

As this article points out, this is not specifically an Uber problem, and as such, I think the title is an inaccurate and deliberate click-bait attempt to get more viewers.

ccvannorman• 12 years ago

I do not believe in Uber's lack of ethics and the way they do business

THIS. They've done so much bullshit that I flat out refuse to use them. Is there a compiled list of all their wrongdoings somewhere? I'd love to refer my friends to it..

smacktoward2• 12 years ago

While I do not disagree with the amount of data that Uber have, a company like Facebook and Google arguably know more about us than we do ourselves. Why should we distrust Uber more than any other company?

I believe the point of the article was that we should not distrust Uber more than any other company; we should distrust them all equally, i.e. assume they are all misusing or failing to secure our personal data until an audit by a trusted third party (an "information fiduciary") can prove otherwise.

However, I do believe that companies with data like Uber should be held accountable to very high standards and any breach of privacy of said data would result in severe penalties. This is not just an Uber problem, this is a big data problem and one many companies have.

The problem is that there is no incentive for the companies to treat customer data responsibly, while there are substantial commercial incentives for them to misuse it, or at best to reduce the amount they spend on securing it to the absolute minimum possible that they can get away with. And since users are poorly informed and have little power, these incentives will continue to be misaligned until third parties exist with the market or legal muscle to create negative incentives around misusing information strong enough to outweigh the positive ones.

DigitalSea2• 12 years ago

I believe the point of the article was that we should not distrust Uber more than any other company

If that was their point, then the title they selected, "We Can't Trust Uber" does a pretty poor job at explaining that consumers should distrust companies like Uber, Google and Facebook equally. The title insinuates and singles out Uber solely, but then the article does mention other companies like Facebook and the power and data that they have. Seems the title was for click-bait purposes.

There definitely needs to be some kind of change on a regulatory level. I agree, the problem is these companies lack incentives to be responsible and treat data like a bank protecting its consumers money (a poor analogy given the GFC and all, but still).

wavefunction• 12 years ago

Targeted? One of their executives publicly threatened a member of the media. Who was also a customer. Again and again their "leadership" makes unethical or morally questionable decisions that impact their customers, their employees and society FOR MONEY. I'm also not exactly a genius but I can at least remember "never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel."

Certainly we shouldn't trust Google (or other corps) any more than we trust Uber, but I don't see why we can't distrust all of them equally. I don't have any sympathy for Uber.

vertex-four• 12 years ago

You seem to be arguing that this isn't the article that you'd like it to be, not that the headline or article is incorrect. You'd like an article on the regulatory environment around Big Data, and this is merely an example of one specific thing one specific Big Data company can do (and has done and is doing).

That doesn't make the article invalid. In fact, this is exactly the sort of article that needs to exist when there isn't a regulatory environment to protect the people - when people have to calculate their interactions with each individual company to ensure it's not going to bite their ass later, they need to know which individual companies are capable of doing what.

ProAm• 12 years ago

While I do not disagree with the amount of data that Uber have, a company like Facebook and Google arguably know more about us than we do ourselves. Why should we distrust Uber more than any other company?

Facebook and Google give you a product/service for free in exchange for this data, we PAY uber for a service and should be treated differently because of that fact alone.

Animats• 12 years ago

Uber have all of this info on where you came from, where you are going and that we should not trust them because they do not have processes in place to ensure users information on trips taken is kept private.

Sadly, the same can be said for Google, Apple, AT&T, and Verizon. At least one of those probably knows where you are right now.

discardorama• 12 years ago

Email companies (I won't name names here) have _much_ more sensitive data than Uber does. How come the same scrutiny isn't brought to bear on them? We do know that some of the leading ones will mine your emails for targeting. I remember once I was having a little tiff with the GF, and the ads I saw were for marriage counselors and therapists. That was creepy.

CamperBob2• 12 years ago

How come the same scrutiny isn't brought to bear on them?

As long as they have a stated privacy policy and abide by it, what's the problem?

Hoffmannnn• 12 years ago

They must abide by numerous data privacy, security, and internal access laws, here and abroad. It just so happens that most of the laws are abroad.

Thrymr• 12 years ago

Previous HN discussion on the (now deleted) "Rides of Glory" post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8644080

They also seem to have deleted other blog posts that people have criticized, e.g. "Uberdata: How prostitution and alcohol make Uber better" [2].

Internet Archive links:

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140827195715/http://blog.uber....

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20120524052917/http://blog.uber....

gwintrob• 12 years ago

That part of the article stuck out for me. The authors then draw a comparison to OKCupid "experiment[ing] on its users", but Uber is writing blog posts with anonymized data. I do agree that Uber should be extremely careful with securing its data, but I'd be interested to read more data analysis.

ams6110• 12 years ago

Opportunity for an Uber-like service that destroys your ride data after you have reached your destination (why do they need it after that, anyway?)

raldi• 12 years ago

To investigate complaints that the driver took you on a grossly indirect route, for one.

cddotdotslash• 12 years ago

"It's like Snapchat but for ride sharing"

smhinsey• 12 years ago

They don't seem to care much about their users. I had an account I hadn't used in years, long enough that the credit card associated with it was expired. This resulted in my account being locked in a way that required me to contact their helpdesk. After telling me to do the equivalent of power cycling my machine by going through their password reset screens, which I'd already tried, they told me that to restore my account I'd need to email them a picture of my driver's license. This leads me to believe that their support database is probably a goldmine for identity thieves and generally those databases are not exactly Fort Knox.

suprgeek• 12 years ago

Every single recent (and not so recent) item about Uber screams ethically & morally bankrupt scumbags who would soon as throw you under a bus (or an Uber) if it meant making a fast buck.

1) In the New Delhi Uber rape case -they failed to verify the driver who was a repeat offender, they had no call number and no way to access drive logs from India.

2) As others have pointed out - the concept of privacy at Uber is tragically laughable (Rides-of-glory, God Mode, Using riders info for non-ride purposes etc etc)

3) Playing dirty with competitors is encouraged

4) The VP who boasted of hiring a hit team to dig up dirt on Journalists families is still working at Uber after saying this in a very public forum.

And this is just the recent stuff. Why anyone would patronize this scummy company is really beyond comprehension.

[1] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/after-vi...

philwelch2• 12 years ago

The VP who boasted of hiring a hit team to dig up dirt on Journalists families is still working at Uber after saying this in a very public forum.

This point has obviously been through a few rounds of "telephone".

"boasted of hiring a hit team"--he suggested it as a hypothetical idea, he didn't "boast" of already doing it, nor is there any indication he did

"in a very public forum"--he said it at a private dinner party where comments were understood to be off the record, but someone brought a +1 and didn't read him into this so he ran with it.

onedev• 12 years ago

He was just drunk and made an offhanded joke. Come on people, we make offensive jokes all the time. The difference is that people laugh our jokes off and for him, a reporter picked it up and ran with it.

I'm not trying to defend Uber with any of the other stuff, I just think that one particular thing was blown up a little bit more than was necessary.

I prefer Lyft anyway.

saraid216• 12 years ago

"in a very public forum"--he said it at a private dinner party where comments were understood to be off the record, but someone brought a +1 and didn't read him into this so he ran with it.

You know, I never did go back and find out how the Romney 47% leaks actually made it out the door. I wonder if it's public knowledge at this point.

a8da6b0c91d• 12 years ago

The squealing about the very sane idea of doing some journalism on journalists is very lulzy. I don't trust Uber and have never given them business. I trust the NYTimes even less and will never give them a cent. They are crooks who lied us into war. They are now owned by the monopolist Carlos Slim who lies to us about telecom and immigration issues relevant to his business interests.

In the golden age of American journalism the idea of doing hit pieces on journalists wouldn't even be interesting. Mencken and friends did it to each other constantly. It's hilarious these people think they're part of some unassailable priesthood now.

ianhawes• 12 years ago

I would say the only item you've brought up that even comes close to "morally bankrupt" is #3. While Uber has definitely used some dirty tricks to go after Lyft, my understanding is they've teamed up with them in going after regulatory issues.

The New Delhi rape case could have just as easily happened to Lyft. The infrastructure for background checks and criminal records in India is more or less nonexistent, so I doubt that Lyft would've been able to catch this driver before he committed a crime any more than Uber would've been able to. The incident is awful, but not Uber's fault. Moreover, would a taxi company be held responsible for a driver raping a passenger?

The examples of Uber violating privacy are sketchy at best. It appears that the god mode app is akin to Google's live search feature which displays thousands of real-time searches for demonstration purposes. The rides-of-glory incident was definitely a PR gaffe, but once again, far from morally bankrupt. If anything it was a play on the OKCupid-style data driven blog posts. I don't see anyone accusing them of being morally bankrupt.

As for the comments on digging up dirt on journalists, based on whats come out from OTHER sources at the private dinner (NOT a "very public forum" as you described it) it was taken out of context.

Its unfortunate that Uber is taking heat for so many things. I use Uber often and trust them with my data. I think anyone that is seriously troubled by the recent onslaught against Uber should take a moment to really think about whether they provide a genuine service or are just scumbags.

lolwutf• 12 years ago

The New Delhi rape case could have just as easily happened to Lyft.

No, not necessarily.

The key here is that each company is ultimately the responsible party for vetting the drivers that come to you.

Uber touts a rigorous background checking process but, as we've seen, time and time again, their background checking has been horrible/not actually existent.

shangxiao2• 12 years ago

Moreover, would a taxi company be held responsible for a driver raping a passenger?

Yes! If not legally responsible, at the very least they are socially & morally responsible.

sravfeyn• 12 years ago

The New Delhi rape case could have just as easily happened to Lyft. The infrastructure for background checks and criminal records in India is more or less nonexistent,

It's not about non-existent prevention mechanisms. It's about how difficult it is to contact Uber (at least in India), whether they took the responsibility of what happened, and whether they are going to invest time to take preventive measures instead of immorally running after competitors in India. Having a bad automated support at a company like Uber that deals with transporting flesh around is a sign of being morally irresponsible.

steamboiler• 12 years ago

The infrastructure for background checks and criminal records in India is more or less nonexistent, so I doubt that Lyft would've been able to catch this driver before he committed a crime any more than Uber would've been able to.

Yes, blame it on the system. Never mind that Uber performed NO checks; never mind that the guy's record was revealed shortly after his arrest, indicating that had Uber performed a check they stood a good chance of finding the same out.

While India's police system is not perfect, Uber's attitude is downright arrogant: "it is you natives and your cops who are to blame". The law mandates a background check, you didn't follow the mandate. The least you can do is to own up to that.

plinkplonk• 12 years ago

"The infrastructure for background checks and criminal records in India is more or less nonexistent"

Duh. Not true. It is not a perfect system, but there is a system of police verification. If someone has gone to jail for rape, (as this driver has) the check would bring it up.

Besides the point isn't whether the system is perfect. The point is that Uber didn't bother using the system or following the laws of the land and plays fast and loose with claims of "verification of drivers".

From Uber CEO Travis Kalanick "We will work with the government to establish clear background checks currently absent in their commercial transportation licensing programs"

He makes it sound like it is the government's fault. No, background checks are not "currently absent" in transportation licensing.

Police verification of taxi/transport drivers is mandated by law. Uber ignored this law (as it ignores many laws, all over the world). Now this lowlife blames the government/Indian laws.

You can't decide not to follow laws because you think them "incomplete", and then not get blamed when such avoidance bites you in the ass.

What a dick. "Safest rides on the road" my ass.

Rambunctious3• 12 years ago

What happened in Delhi is tragic -- and no one would want such a dreadful thing to happen to anyone, anywhere.

Yes, Uber did not vet the driver enough. But "police verification" in India is a big joke. You pretty much go to one station and find out if there are crimes committed by a person in that locality. There really isn't an exchange of information across stations across cities about a person's criminal record. So, you can only do so much in this country, where a lot of such information needs to be made more easily accessible even to law enforcement agencies themselves. In fact, the government itself is mulling doing away with such verification requirements for government jobs as the police reports are often perfunctory (link: http://bit.ly/1lJ1vRy ).

Regarding Uber's service in India, I have taken over 40 rides in the past year and find it to be the most reliable taxi service in town. In fact, I find it to be far safer when the women and kids in my family ride an Uber vis-a-vis other transportation services. I know fully well that endorsing Uber when a lot of folks are outraging about the firm over the latest controversy du jour may not really come across well -- but I personally feel that the alternatives in India are far worse and definitely not 100% crime free.

shabda• 12 years ago

You are making a claim that because doing a police verification is hard, Uber should not be doing even the most basic checks it is required to do by law. Delhi Taxi laws require police verifications and a non disableable GPS, Uber failed in both. I would expect Uber to do more checks than the minimum required by law, not less.

I have taken more than a 100 trips with Uber. https://www.dropbox.com/s/v2ypioshi4z8zlh/Screenshot%202014-...

I am evaluating if I should continue using them now. Its hard as they are so convenient, but if they have to blatant disregard of the basic security procedures, I will find something else.

cmadan• 12 years ago

As a New Delhi resident, the latest incident is the last straw.

They advertise that they do background checks and that they are a safe transportation option. But clearly, they don't.

Based on this, I have recommended Uber to several friends of mine. One of them could have easily been the victim in the recent case.

This is inexcusable and unpardonable and betrayal to the point of no return. Sorry Uber, I'm deleting your app and will tell EACH and EVERY person I meet to do the same.

If the Indian government does not cancel your permit (which they should, for flagrantly ignoring laws), I hope the consumers vote with their wallet and drive Uber out of India due to lack of customers.

This is the only way companies will learn that "move fast and break things" is acceptable only if you are a social networking website where breaking things does not result in someone's life being completely ruined.

downandout3• 12 years ago

Why anyone would patronize this scummy company is really beyond comprehension.

They patronize it because it solves a major problem that people have. People will continue to do so for that same reason. At the end of the day, people are selfish. They care that their problem gets solved; they don't care if a few journalists claim to feel threatened or that a criminal driver goes crazy every now and then (btw this also occurs in taxis, with much higher frequency).

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

It's even more shameful that investors keep rewarding them for this attitude. It really makes me hope Uber goes up in flames like Groupon.

zaidf• 12 years ago

It's hysterical reading the drama about Uber because it misses the biggest reason why someone shouldn't use Uber: it's almost always more expensive than Lyft, at least using Line in San Francisco. This morning I got a lyft ride from downtown SF to SFO for $18. The Uber quote was $25-32.

TheM00se• 12 years ago

Uber is scum, I hope they get shutdown soon, very soon.

mcv• 12 years ago

This is getting increasingly clear. A year ago I was pretty positive about Uber, but not anymore. They play dirty. They play dirty wherever they get the chance. I don't trust them not to use their data to blackmail.

downandout3• 12 years ago

"The problem wasn’t just that a representative of a powerful corporation was contemplating opposition research on reporters..."

The Uber corporation did no such thing, and the executive involved wasn't "contemplating" anything. This individual executive made a colossally stupid, hypothetical statement during a rant at a party about what he would like to do to a self-declared enemy of the company that happened to be a member of the media (a term I use loosely in this case). This rant was reported to Sarah Lacy (the target of the hypothetical), who, smelling opportunity, then wrote a blog post about how Uber had hitmen hunting her children while they slept in their pajamas (seriously, she actually talked about the danger they were in while they slept in their pajamas).

Of course, when interviewed about it on Bloomberg West, Sarah Lacy was certain that this was a "plan" and not a hypothetical, but could produce no evidence of any actions taken or pinpoint any harm that befell her or her sleeping children. NYT is a little late on this one, but given the nice revenue pop that Sarah Lacy's wild exaggeration of the story must have brought, I can see why they are trying to beat this dead horse. Sadly, this story has about as much significance as the original.

Borogravia2• 12 years ago

Actually, Uber already did exactly what the article was talking about, to a Buzzfeed reporter. You should probably read more carefully.

downandout3• 12 years ago

They fed negative stories about the personal lives of reporters and their families to the media? If you have proof, I'd love to see it. Because that's what the "threat" and the corresponding publicity were all about. It had nothing to do with being able to show someone where they've been, which is common and should be expected with any app that you authorize your phone to give location data to.

Perhaps you should take your own advice about reading more carefully.

skybrian• 12 years ago

This article mixes up a couple different issues.

First, internal controls: what can employees do when they access the user database? Beginning startups probably don't have a lot of formal policies and you're relying on good judgement of the founders and first employees. As a company grows, they need to guard user data with access restrictions, restrict root to a few trusted sysadmins, and put in place clear rules about what what employees with legitimate access to the database are allowed to do. (And of course if your database gets owned it's all for nothing, so you can't protect privacy without good security.) It sounds like Uber might be behind on this, relative to their scale.

Second, what can you do with aggregate reports generated from user data? Facebook and OkCupid and Uber posted research articles to their blob summarizing some of their users' overall characteristics. When it's okay to do this sort of research is debatable, but it's a different issue from invading the privacy of individual users.

Unfortunately taking a regular taxi may not help [1]. That was screwup rather than intentionally revealing user data, but by now everyone should know that publishing anonymized records is really hard and probably shouldn't be done at all.

[1] http://research.neustar.biz/2014/09/15/riding-with-the-stars...

zeeshanm• 12 years ago

Articles like this one remind me of Baudrillard who once famously said the only way out of this is to unplug and in this "post-modern" society we are the ones unplugged by these apps. I mean why in the world you can't walk 5 blocks and have to "hail" uber or lyft or sidecar or hailo or what have you. I know there are other specific use cases of these apps, too.

goodgoblin2• 12 years ago

The article does well by pointing out that Uber isn't the only company to do these kinds of things, and in fact almost every corporation engages in some variation of these tactics. Everyone knows that corporations have the same psychological profile as sociopaths, but what is fascinating about the recent Uber revelations is how clumsily they play their part. Sociopaths do not understand why society is organized the way it is, yet they do understand that it is important to appear to understand it, to appear to be a good law abiding citizen. Sociopaths and corporations both take great pains to hide their true anti-social and parasitic intentions. Once spotted by the herd the sociopath must restart the painstaking process of making friends, pretending to care about things real people care about, ingratiating themselves with a community and building up trust for the sole purpose of betraying that trust in secret later.

For many reasons, the media is generally content to let the dirty tricks companies engage in pass by without examination, leaving the machinations of the sociopathic corporate spiders mostly in the dark. The media earns it's keep by convincing society that their version of the truth is the best approximation money can buy.

The mistake Uber made was in threatening a reporter, an action which triggered a very personal response, the kind of response that humanizes the parties involved and clearly demonstrates the difference in the kinds of things Uber is willing to do to advance their goal (blackmail a reporter so they can replace more cab rides with Ubers) v.s. the kinds of goals people have (to enjoy Friday night, get home from the airport). Though it likely won't last long, there is a window of time where incensed reporters may ply their trade without the usual over-riding concern for their own career, and benefit society in the process.

Their rate of expansion potentially at risk, Uber will likely respond with a bill of rider's rights and a corporate pledge to uphold the highest ethical standards. In time people will be trained to think of Uber and high moral standards as closely correlated, and all the while the corporate spiders in the shadows have been watching and learning from Uber's mistake. Eventually Uber's case will be used in business schools to teach the dos and don'ts of important subjects like Media Relations (1. never clumsily proclaim your intent to blackmail reporters. 2. always restore a tarnished reputation through a combination of both marketing and policy). Boutique marketing firms will specialize in helping corporations write privacy policies that are made to be marketed, crafted to neutralize negative impressions long enough to lull the sheep back to complacency.

goodgoblin2• 12 years ago

Did whoever voted me down even read this? I wish I could delete it now, you people don't deserve this comment.

general_failure2• 12 years ago

The title should read 'we cannot trust uber either'. Other companies like fb, google, do the very same thing except they are more secretive about it

unixpunx• 12 years ago

Uber should make a social media website, that way nobody would care. All kind of shady business or lack of ethics are completely forgotten, as long as people get to post selfies and show off their socioeconomic status to other losers lile them.

swiftydev• 12 years ago

We Can't Trust Nytimes

We Can't Trust Uber

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