Uber To Pay Up To $25 Million For Misleading Advertising In California (bbc.co.uk)

Bruce66423 writes: Uber has agreed to a settlement of $10 million for misleading advertising about the quality of its background checks for drivers. One particular concern was its absence of fingerprint-based checking.Uber has agreed to no longer use such terms as "safest drive on the road" in its advertising. Prosecutors said Uber failed to prevent 25 people with criminal records from becoming drivers, including several sex offenders and a convicted murderer. Another language change included renaming its "safe ride fee" as a "booking fee." Uber has agreed to make the $10 million payment within 60 days to settle the agreement, otherwise they will be forced to pay an additional $15 million in two years.

Comments

But ... but ...

[Hognoxious]

But it's on the internet and we've got an app!

Failed to prevent?

[thegarbz]

What in the actual hell? Uber has "failed to prevent 25 people with criminal records from becoming drivers"? So frigging what?

Either the people are normal every day people who should have no issue finding work, or they are dangerous criminals and shouldn't have been released. Why the heck should Uber be preventing free people from working?

Re:Failed to prevent?

[drinkypoo]

Oh my god, not a whole 25 of them!!!?1?! That's terrible!They will need hundreds more in order to reach parity with normal taxi services. It's safe to assume that California has just as many drivers for actual taxi services with a record as Uber does, even per capita, and maybe more. You are already not safe in a taxi in California, don't imagine that you are. (Not that it's safe to be a taxi driver, either...)

The real story here is that our country is a pressure cooker of inequity, just like most of the rest of the world, and when you apply energy to a system you add motion. But government doesn't want to fix society, so long as they can look busy. They don't want to work themselves out of a job.

Re:Failed to prevent?

[PopeRatzo]

you are better off admitting your past mistakes than trying to hide them.

You're not married, are you?

Re:Failed to prevent?

[gstoddart]

Why the heck should Uber be preventing free people from working?

Right, that way if some crazy guy goes on a shooting rampage or starts raping female passengers they can just say "why, we just let free people work and if passengers want safety and assurance we're not sending out psychopaths they're free to conduct their own background checks".

Sorry, but people do kind of expect when they request a cab -- oh, sorry, an illegal car-for-hire pretending it's an unregulated ride sharing service to which laws don't apply -- that a fucking serial killer isn't being sent to them.

See, one of the many fucking laws Uber claims don't apply to it are things like criminal background checks to protect the public safety. Oh, and commercial licenses, proper insurance, vehicle inspections, and shit like that.

Uber's entire business model is basically saying "you know all those laws places have enacted to ensure passenger safety and the life, well, none of them apply to us".

In this case, Uber straight up lied about the safety assurances they could give about drivers, and mislead passengers into thinking they conducted their background checks to a higher standard than other companies, and actually used terms like "safe" in their marketing.

So, yeah, when you lie to the public about how safe you are, and fail to do the level of background checks you suggest you do, people find out about it, and your dumb ass gets fined.

Just as an aside

[H3lldr0p]

Why are there laws and regulations preventing certain people form seeking employment based on past convictions?

For the most part, prosecutors can't even bring that stuff up as part of a argument in a court.

I get that we want to feel safe, but two things occur to me. First is that these people have "paid" for their crime. How is this not continuing a sentence after it's supposed to be over? Second, how do we expect people to make a better life after prison if we make it even harder for them to get gainful employment?

Re:Taxi companies with modpoints?

[PopeRatzo]

and that taxi drivers often assault their passengers

Taxi drivers are a lot more likely to be assaulted by their passengers than the other way around.