
Uber employees 'spied on ex-partners, politicians and Beyoncé' (2016) - nwrk
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/13/uber-employees-spying-ex-partners-politicians-beyonce
======
adjkant
Regardless of why the stories are coming out, can we stop directing away from
them? We've got a big bad wolf on the hook, why let them off? There is no
reason anyone should be supporting them at this point unless you're
acknowledging you don't care about all of the stories. Other companies
potentially being as bad (which I think people are really overplaying) is not
reason to make excuses for them, as stated in other threads here.

~~~
ancarda
I'm starting to get very skeptical to be honest. I tried to read that article
looking for some hard evidence, one link went to BuzzFeed, where that linked
to Forbes. I'm finding it hard to get more information.

In the wake of fake news, I'm asking for links, and not to other news sources.
How do we know all this dirt isn't coming from Lyft? They're certainly going
to benefit from this.

I read through the documentcloud link, Uber collects a lot of data, is
honestly all I can see. I feel like I've missed something important, but I'm
reading on my phone so I couldn't really search or read properly.

Could you help me understand?

(For the record, I don't use Uber or any ride-sharing platform and I don't
have any stocks/shares. I have no incentive to watch them succeed or fail.)

~~~
snarf
So "Hell" was the name of their program for tracking Lyft drivers, and
"Heaven" or "God View" was the name of their program for tracking Uber
passengers. The allegations of Uber employees abusing the privacy of
individual passengers using God View go back to at least 2014, so this
actually isn't anything new, just more specifics about who they were spying
on. See here for a screenshot of their God View emailed to a journalist
without her permission: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-
investigating...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-
investigating-its-top-new-york-executive-for-privacy)

And see here for their cute Dr. Evil mascot that's part of their God View,
which doesn't seem so funny any more:
[https://www.engadget.com/2014/11/19/uber-godview-
tracking/](https://www.engadget.com/2014/11/19/uber-godview-tracking/)

~~~
bpicolo
> See here for a screenshot of their God View emailed to a journalist without
> her permission

That screenshot doesn't really have anything bad in it, to be fair. It's a
view of their cars in the city.

~~~
bonzini
No, it shows the last two weeks of Uber activity for the journalist:

[https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-
static/static/2014-11/18/2...](https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-
static/static/2014-11/18/22/enhanced/webdr12/longform-
original-5450-1416369283-9.png?output-format=auto&output-quality=auto)

~~~
bpicolo
Ah, sure. Is the complaint that they make that readily available to some set
of people? It'd be silly to not expect them to have rider history in general

~~~
celticninja
There is a difference between having anonymised data available for analysis
and individuals having direct access to complete individual data sets.

------
Ductapemaster
These stories just keep pumping out - "Uber uses internal tool X for nefarious
purpose Y". I genuinely curious if the same sort of inquisition were focused
on a different company, would we see similar stories? How much of this is
cultural, and how much of it is a result of being examined microscopically by
passionate investigators? Or is Uber really just that bad?

~~~
mmjaa
This is an important story because, in spite of the fact that our techno-
industry has been at this for a long time now (decades), we still get
companies that think its okay to violate fundamental human rights in the
pursuit of profit - and _that_ is why this story is so relevant to the HN
crowd.

It doesn't matter that Uber did this. Microsoft, Sun, and countless other
companies have gotten into trouble for this sort of behaviour in the past.
This story is not about Uber.

This story is about how poorly the tech industry regards the legislative
machinery that gives us all the right to have free access to computers, to do
what we like with them, without restriction - and the liabilities of that
freedom, when played in a market full of unscrupulous individuals with far,
far too much power.

~~~
Applejinx
There are quite a lot of people who will tell you there is no such thing as
rights. There's only power. This is not a new idea: it's always been around
(think 'Magna Carta' and who knows how many times, back infinitely into the
past).

The idea that there is no rights, only power, is as true as we agree it to be.

And that's why this debate is still ongoing. In times where it's a very live
and relevant debate, power is ascendant and making the argument that rights
are old hat. If it wasn't much of a debate because it was self-evident that
there are no rights, we'd be in one of those Dark Ages periods of
stultification, waiting for civilization to start up again. If it wasn't much
of a debate because there is no power… actually, I'm not sure that's ever
happened or ever will happen. It'd be an interesting thought experiment, to
ask what that would even look like. Presumably that's a picture of bureacracy,
but weaponized, meaning the power is on the law-makers and those who bend
their ears.

As expected, that's the first thing claimed by power, whether it makes sense
or not. To power, any bureacracy or law is always weaponized and illegitimate.

~~~
mmjaa
"Rights" are just 'powers' granted to individuals by the groups they compose
for the purpose.

~~~
wavefunction
There's also the concept of natural and inalienable rights, at least
theoretically in the US. In practice many of the 'Constitution lovers' among
the politicians and authority figures will happily deny many of these natural
rights whenever possible and useful to their own ends.

------
yalogin
In the startup culture of sidestepping rules this is the definition of hustle.
You do whatever it takes to get info on your ex, politicians and especially
Beyonce. /s

By the way I am pretty sure every startup is this way. At the very least this
romantic idea of startups is getting shattered and Uber is taking the fall for
it.

~~~
_jal
I've worked for startups basically my entire professional career, and none of
the startups I've worked for were like that. I've interviewed at/talked about
consulting for some that had a bit of a frat-house vibe, and turned those
down.

\- The single sexual harassment claim I can recall was a huge deal that caused
soul-searching about how that person was hired. (Don't know that that was the
best reaction, but it was indicative of the concern.)

\- When things that pushed ethical lines were mooted, that was talked about a
lot, and, at least to my sense of morals, we rarely crossed them.

Bottom line - being a startup doesn't mean you're an Uber. Being an Uber means
you're an Uber.

------
sidcool
Uber is perhaps just a symptom of a bigger problem. Wasn't HSBC accused of
money laundering and then were just fined because they were too big to jail?
Same with 2008 crisis. In capitalism there will always be such actors who will
go scot free because they are too big and have tons of money.

------
nemacol
Remember the time that the yellow cab was tracking our location? No? Me
either.

~~~
areyousure
You can download data for over a billion taxi rides in NYC:
[http://toddwschneider.com/posts/analyzing-1-1-billion-nyc-
ta...](http://toddwschneider.com/posts/analyzing-1-1-billion-nyc-taxi-and-
uber-trips-with-a-vengeance/)

The linked blog post literally tracks employees of individual companies and
sees where they live.

------
irixusr
At a certain point a criminal investigation needs to be done with a through
discovery process.

(Man I hate taxis though)

------
TellMeWhoToBan
The reality is that Uber disrupts taxable taxi revenue and municipalities are
trying to strong arm them into getting a cut. States and counties, deeply
entrenched in financial vehicles and income streams their analysts told them
were viable for 30-year bonds, have absolutely no incentive to promote the
type of innovation that allows a managed/unmanaged peer-to-peer economy.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/REVEF48531TAXABL](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/REVEF48531TAXABL)

------
randyrand
am I the only person that thinks this vendetta against Uber is stupid and
still enjoys using them?

------
mike128
There's been a lot of stories lately putting Uber in a bad light. It makes me
wonder if it's not their competition who is behind it. Taxi industry lobby
perhaps?

~~~
CSMastermind
It's Google. They hired a PR firm to attack them when they sued them over
stolen autonomous vehicle tech.

~~~
ithinkinstereo
There was plenty of bad press, pre-Waymo lawsuit.

It's also worth noting that Google also has a sizable stake in Uber via their
investment arm, Google Ventures.

1\. [https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-
puts-258m-...](https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-
puts-258m-into-uber-its-largest-deal-ever/)

~~~
blueline
i dont think google is behind the PR stuff either way but wouldn't this just
be hedging bets if they were?

~~~
ithinkinstereo
Why wouldn't they want Uber to be massively successful? This way they get both
a big cash payout plus their equity stake in Uber rockets to the moon.

Accusing Google of the recent spate of bad PR is bizarre to me. There are
plenty of players that have a much higher vested interest in dooming Uber than
Google.

