Uber's Investigators Admit To Lying While Digging Up Dirt On Legal Foes (theverge.com)

Andrew J . Hawkins, writing for The Verge: Ergo, the secretive, CIA-linked firm that was paid by Uber to investigate the plaintiff in one of the ride-hail startup's many lawsuits, has now admitted to lying and illegally recording phone calls during its probe, according to Law360. Lawyers for Ergo owned up to the infractions in oral arguments in court Thursday, drawing a rebuke from the judge overseeing the case. Last December, Spencer Meyer filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, alleging a scheme to fix prices in violation of antitrust laws. The same day, Uber hired Ergo to investigate Meyer out of concern he posed a security risk to Kalanick. But Ergo also gathered information on Meyer's lawyer, a move that some critics say went too far. Ergo's lawyer argued that the firm was unaware the investigation was tied to a lawsuit, even while admitting Ergo's investigator "dissembled and used false pretenses in his duties," Law360 said.

Comments

Haven't we learned about Uber yet?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Laws mean nothing to them... Disruptive! $60 billion valuation! Disruptive!

honesty

[jmcvetta]

Honesty is for commoners. Law enforcers and similar running dogs of the oligarchy are expected and encouraged to lie whenever expedient.

Re:honesty

[Dutch Gun]

Slashdot used to be very pro-uber.

What happened? Is this the result of the new owners? Are people's opinions so easily swayed? Is this a case of not thinking it through originally?

Really? I've always liked Uber as a service and as a general concept. But I've long thought the execs were amoral scumbags. I'd imagine many people tend to change their minds about Uber after learning more about their executives. And from what I recall, Uber has been rather polarizing for quite a while here on /.

Re:honesty

[Etcetera]

Slashdot used to be very pro-uber.

What happened? Is this the result of the new owners? Are people's opinions so easily swayed? Is this a case of not thinking it through originally?

Anyone who's been around here long enough remembers how we all felt about M$ back in the day, and the removal of shackles that Linux and OSS represented (both to that and to the traditional Unixes), and for a long time crowd-sourced [anything] was seen as an inherent good by analogy. Hell, it worked for everything else!

Fetishizing data collection (knowledge!) and rapidity (disruption!) over philosophic understanding is bad, but that's basically all of the larger tech industry right now, *especially* those to dumb/stupid/oblivious/young to know their history and who haven't taken enough critical thinking and theory of knowledge courses.

a) Uber intentionally breaks the law first and asks questions later
b) Uber's success comes from the breaking of the laws relating to taxicab services and employment
c) Uber's fucking evil. They spy on political enemies and journalists they don't like.

We tried unregulated taxicabs in America. We decided to regulate them because of external factors (strange people; crime; discrimination; pricing). If the taxi companies were deregulated as well, then I suppose they could fight fairly, but Uber's winning only because of that, and then abusing its IC workforce in the courts. They're everything that's wrong with the "gig economy" that millennials are convincing themselves is somehow a good.

Re:honesty

[stephanruby]

Slashdot used to be very pro-uber. What happened? Is this the result of the new owners? Are people's opinions so easily swayed? Is this a case of not thinking it through originally?

Why is there a contradiction?

Take Apple for instance, I can still love Apple (under Steve Jobs), but still think that Steve Jobs was a horrible human being for treating Steve Wozniak, his daughter, and some of his employees, the way that he did.

And no, I don't mean to compliment the CEO of Uber by comparing him to Steve Jobs. Unlike Steve Jobs, the CEO of Uber is actually a big liability to his company.

Re:honesty

[Plus1Entropy]

Maybe. I was in Ecuador a couple years ago, and they have a completely unregulated taxi/minibus industry (and very little public transport), and as a result it has a lot of problems. For example, the bus may show up at 6:30am everyday, or not. It may go the same route everyday, or not. The driver may decide to charge the same price today, or not. You may have already paid the driver to take you to a particular place, but they decide they don't want to go to that part of town today, and so kick you out miles away from where you paid to be dropped off.

Because of the complete lack of regulation, you end up with a system where the exchange of money for service is not guaranteed. Capitalism only functions if the transactions are valid (i.e. I get what I pay for, and if not, I have a method of redress). Hence why you need regulation. However, like you said, it can go too far, when regulations become the means by which major players stifle competition.

It's not about honesty

[rsilvergun]

Uber can do terrible things and be Honest. Instead focus on how they break the perceived social contract between employee and employer. If you worked hard and played by the rules your employer would take care of you and let you have an OK life and die reasonably content. Whether this was true or not it's _suppose_ to be true. Uber breaks all that and so far nobody's noticed or cared.

Re:It's not about honesty

[khallow]

Instead focus on how they break the perceived social contract between employee and employer. If you worked hard and played by the rules your employer would take care of you and let you have an OK life and die reasonably content.

There's several things to note here. First, I doubt Uber perceives things the same way. If they perceive the "perceived social contract" differently, then what's to say that your perception of it is better than theirs? I doubt most people involved with Uber think of it as a cradle to grave service and hence, don't perceive this alleged contract. Maybe you shouldn't either?

Nor has this perceived contract existed for the entirety of humanity's existence. I feel this is just like claiming that Valentine's Day should be a second Christmas just because someone wants presents and Christmas is pretty far off in early February. It's an arbitrary changing of the rules to advantage some group at the expense of another.

Third, I don't grant that most of the people involved with providing rides in Uber are employees and hence, subject to such a contract. For a key example, there's no obligation to provide Uber rides. That obligation to work is a key aspect of employment. Seriously, what real job allows you to just drop employment right now and then resume employment at doing the same thing eight months later without telling the employer at any point that you're doing that?

Fourth, why do you think that Uber isn't following this "contract" well enough? Getting paid good money to provide rides sounds exactly like a bit of "take care of you". Maybe if these people want an OK life and to die content, then they should use the funds that they get in exchange for providing ridership services to do that themselves?

Finally, the ultimate irrationality of this contract is evident in the assumption that providing such things is something that an employer would be competent at. You know, the same people who so often have trouble seeing past the next quarter? I'm just not feeling it.