
Uber is tracking my battery status, all the time - punnerud
I looked into the HTTPS-trafic from the Uber-app (with MITMproxy) and it is one of the few apps I have found<p>that is sending my battery and charging status on a regular basis:<p><pre><code>          &quot;battery_status&quot;: &quot;unplugged&quot;,
          &quot;battery_level&quot;: 0.73,</code></pre>
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Gys
They have a good argument for doing so...

[http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/05/20/uber-riders-will-
pa...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/05/20/uber-riders-will-
pay-9-9-times-surge-pricing-phone-battery-low/)

A similar article was posted here a few days ago.

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trowawee
That is not a good argument. That is an asshole invasion of user privacy.

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Gys
Sorry, I meant that in a sarcastic way

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trowawee
Ah, my apologies. I'm so used to seeing people actually making these
arguments.

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nibs
I use m.uber.com - I am almost certain it does not have this permissions
ability. Bonus: it works on desktop too.

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marklyon
On Android (both Android Browser and Chrome), battery information is
accessible. [http://caniuse.com/#feat=battery-
status](http://caniuse.com/#feat=battery-status)

I believe there's a similar option for iOS Safari, but I can't find it
immediately.

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id122015
I've just read today somewhere that if your battery is runing low, the higher
fees you are likely to pay for services like Uber. Do you get why? Think for a
moment before reading the answer... ... ... Because how could you order a
cheap taxi when your battery is dead. You have an urgency and someone wants to
profit from it. Like those who sell food in the airport. Like that locksmith
who overcharges you if you lock yourself in, and so on..

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eb0la
I'm wondering if the higher rate also reflects a higher no-show risk.

I mean, you send the car there but cannot load it an cannot contact the
client.

Does it work like loan classification? Higher risk get higher rates to
compensate defaults/no-shows?

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Arcten
Possibly being used to track battery usage by the app, so that they can
provide a better experience for users.

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EpicEng
How in the world could they tease out the amount of battery their app is
using?

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Arcten
By monitoring proxies for battery usage: CPU time, amount of time location
services is on, etc. and building a model. It's not an easy problem, but for
an app that is widely used such as Uber, it's not infeasible to attempt.

