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Uber Limits 'God View' To Improve Rider Privacy
mpicpp sends this report from CNN:
Uber has rolled back employee access to its "God view" mode, which allows the company to track riders' locations and other data. The ride service company was faced with questions about its privacy policies from U.S. Senator Al Franken, following a series of recent privacy debacles. Uber's updated policy is detailed in its response to the senator's questions. Franken sent Uber a letter (PDF, Uber's response) in November after news reports made two things clear: The ride service company collects lots of data on customers — and some executives don't exercise that power responsibly. In one case, an Uber employee using "God View" easily tracked a reporter's movements on her way to a meeting.
You like God View
All hair-seekers do
To avoid the shame
Of missing a few
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
And no one remembers the other guy. Franken and ? Davis.
In a few years, this service will be completely decentralized, and people will be paying with decentralized currency.
Franken, my dear, we don't give a damn
It's great to know that a company that has threatened reporters, acted flippant about sexual assault, and charged excessive fees to people trying to leave the scene of a hostake crisis after public transit was shut down, had to be cajoled into maybe not letting every weenie stalk its users. No, stalking is just for the upper management that's been shown to be aggressive, condescending, and seemingly have something of a god-complex.
If you have to use a ridesharing app, please, at least use anything other than Uber.
The public at large would be a lot better off if they could get one simple rule through their thick numbskulls
You should have no expectation of privacy using any App, nor the Internet in general. Period. This is a beautiful rule as there are indeed a very few exceptions offered which prove the rule.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Theres at least one person on capitol hill who follows (and uses) new tech.
Thanks Al!
The title of the article, (and therefore the summary), should have said "Uber Claims To Have Limited 'God View' To Improve Rider Privacy". After all, does anybody other than gullible people and fanbois really take them at their word?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
The underlying data is still being collected and thus it is still a privacy violation.
in five years this business will be completely legitimate.
Legit as in a licensed taxi service paying a local government for a medallion. Scheduling a ride with an app rather than a phone is an improvement on an existing business, its not a new type of business.
"Ride sharing" will probably be defined as something like what the FAA does with private pilots. If the car was going to go somewhere already and a person is just tagging along and chipping in for actual expenses, no inflated expenses or tips, then its ride sharing. However if money beyond actual expense changes hands or if the passenger influences where the car goes then its a commercial activity. Note this would only apply to those scheduling rides through a service, not friends and family directly communicating through normal channels.
Have you ever had to sign up to a "private club" in a county that doesn't sell liquor?
Uber can be a new private club of "friends with travel benefits".
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Could one buy a second-hand smartphone, only turning it on to use Uber, and pay with a prepaid anonymous credit card?
(The problem of having to use their non-free application would of course still exist.)
I've never used it and don't have a smartphone, so forgive my ignorance.
Help build the anti-software-patent wiki
Can someone explain why a senator has the authority to force Uber to answer these questions?
What penalties can apply if they don't?
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
One of the things that is fueling the insane hype behind the Web 2.0/mobile/social/app/whatever bubble is the fact that any group of startup kids can use tools to build an app. Just like any group of startup kids could build a website capable of processing payments in 1997, add in a shaky business model and all of a sudden, "this time it's different." Apple, Google and other smartphone OS vendors have rolled out some really cool stuff and basically given everyone a tracking device with all sorts of sensors attached to a full-powered computer the size of a phone. The problem is this -- the nature of the user interface hides the fact from ordinary users that all of their location and other data is being shared with the app developers. Android does a little better with privacy controls, but basically all this stuff is hidden from the user.
Ordinary users, i.e. non-techies, see the shiny app interface and (understandably so) don't see that the "free" services the app provides are paid for either through marketing/advertising (eyeballs in dotcom bubble 1.0 speak) or selling your data to a third party. And even if they knew about it, most people would want the benefit of hailing a cab on demand more than their privacy. It would take some serious user education, and a few very high-profile leaks of customer data to change behavior, and I don't think it would even be possible if that happened. People like their free apps. I would pay Google for a subscription to their search engine if I could be assured my information wasn't being harvested, but I know no one else would want this.
On the positive side, sitting on the sidelines and watching from my comfy seat, it looks like Bubble 2.0 is starting to reach the top. We're already seeing the insane valuations and VC investments, have had a couple high-profile revenue-free IPOs like Twitter, and the next phase is coming. Soon as interest rates start going up and the stock and VC bubble money stops flowing, things will calm down again. When you start hearing startup-speak more and more in the financial press, it's time to sell and wait for things to collapse again. It really is the dotcom bubble all over again, but this time people are carrying their web browsers in their pockets and companies have direct access to their location and habits.
UBER is not HQ in Al Franken's district.
So, in a predictable (honestly, surprising they made it to this market cap without doing it already) part of the maturation process; Uber is claiming that they'll rein in discretionary access to personal information by their frat-bro-asshole management, and instead put full database access to all the data ever in the hands of their advertising and customer analytics weasels.
That's the unpleasant flip side to a story like this. Yes, as it happens, Uber has some of the most punchable management shitweasels one could ask for. The very idea of one of them using 'god view' on you makes you want to take a hot shower and scrub yourself until the uncleanness is gone. However, while opportunistic assholerly is repulsive, it is also unsystematic. Once they grow up a bit, and put those data into the hands of solid, value-rational, systematic, people who aim to squeeze every drop of value out of it, then you are really screwed.
My though is - who cares? SOMEONE still has access to it and they can turn it back on for everyone any time they want to.
Can someone explain this to me, an athiest/agnostic? Just kidding. Maybe I'll ask Richard Dawkins.