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Uber Has Been Using a Secretive Program To Identify Enforcement Officers And Prevent Them From Hailing Cars (nytimes.com)
Uber has been using a secretive program to evade authorities for years, particularly at times when city regulators were trying to block the ride-hailing service, according to a new report by the New York Times. From the report: Uber is using a tool called "Greyball" to work identify requests made by certain users and deny them service, according to the report. The application, later renamed the "violation of terms of service" or VTOS program, is said to employ data analysis on info collected by the Uber app to identify individuals violating Uber's terms of service, and blocks riders from being able to hail rides who fall into that category -- including, according to the report, members of code enforcement authorities or city officials who are attempting to gather data about Uber offering service where it's currently prohibited. The report claims that that Uber's "violation of terms of service" or VTOS program, briefly known as Greyball, began around 2014, and has sign-off from Uber's legal team.In a statement, Uber said, "This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service -- whether that's people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret 'stings' meant to entrap drivers."
Journalists, putting things in context. Russell Brandom, a reporter at The Verge said, This is the kind of thing a DA would put in front of a judge if they wanted to subpoena Uber's business records for an entire city. Matt Rosoff, editorial director at CNBC Digital added, I've been a tech journalist on and off for 21 years and I can't remember any company having a worse month news cycle-wise than Uber is now.
Journalists, putting things in context. Russell Brandom, a reporter at The Verge said, This is the kind of thing a DA would put in front of a judge if they wanted to subpoena Uber's business records for an entire city. Matt Rosoff, editorial director at CNBC Digital added, I've been a tech journalist on and off for 21 years and I can't remember any company having a worse month news cycle-wise than Uber is now.
Their entire business model is based on violating laws so it makes sense they would build tools to make that as easy possible.
If you are fine doing business with the mafia then you should be fine with Uber.... but if you should favour ethical companies (or more ethical companies)... Uber is a bad choice.
I'm open to the idea that Uber is an evil company, but what's with all the Uber news lately? We've had story after story this week. It isn't normal, even for a company as bad as Oracle, to have news story after news story released like this. The whole thing looks like someone is leaking to the press at an opportune time, which raises the question,
cui bono? I don't know the answer to that, but it must be somebody.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Is to arrest and jail their execs first.
Just like the mafia.
Going after the low level never works.
Arrest them, ship them to GITMO, and let them stand trial in a few decades.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Uber just went up a couple notches in my book!
I completely agree. The whole Greyball program is a feature not a bug. Without an aggressive company the monopoly of taxis in so many cities would never have been broken. The law is on the side of lobbyists who are paid by incumbents to prevent competition. I can't tell you how many times I tried to hail a cab in NYC before Uber and simply could not get one. I have similarly been unable to get a cab without 24 hours notice sometimes in the suburbs. The artificial shortage of taxis in NYC is what economics textbooks use to explain economic rent! It's outrageous that people complain about Uber busting up a deeply unfair system full of unnecessary bureaucracy and regulations.
Post a story about how the FBI/CIA/NSA are sniffing around your phones or e-mail and watch the Slashdot community scream about jack-booted thugs. Uber manages to implement a system that warns of potential law enforcement encroachment into their affairs and everyone gets righteous.
If Uber could spin off Greyball as an independent service, I could think of a few people that would buy it.
Have gnu, will travel.
Uber just went up a couple notches in my book!
My sentiment also. In particular, the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission operates its own police force to prevent entrepreneurs from competing with medallion cabs. It has been known to arrest people who drop off their spouses at JFK or LaGuardia, accusing them of operating a taxi service. Victims have to hire expensive legal help to prove their innocence.
I hope Uber mashes these bastards straight into the ground.
I am an Uber driver in the San Francisco bay area.
And I can't speak for other cities, but Uber is so cheap and ubiquitous in my area, Uber is cheaper than public transportation in many cases, it works even during rush hour when most people can't get a taxi, plus it works when Bart is shut down after midnight, that I am quite certain that we're keeping tens of thousands of drunk drivers from driving on the roads each year.
It's outrageous that people complain about Uber busting up a deeply unfair system full of unnecessary bureaucracy and regulations.
Nobody's complaining about that. What makes Uber suck is that they're no better morally, ethically or economically than the scum in the taxi industry. They're just as predatory and evil.
Do we know how that information fallen into the hands of journalists? It seems Uber also has insider foes.
Lyft works better and treats its drivers FAR better..
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
That will not continue. They are attempting monopoly. When they achieve it they will exploit it.
For me being in a taxi means that if there is an accident I am covered every way from Sunday. Regardless of who is at fault, regardless of medical insurance status, irregardless I will be covered and compensated for losses. If I travel in a Uber car, a paying fare, I am not covered at all, not even by the local mandatory third party insurance. A potential disaster.
Calling and using a cab provides limited information to the cab company. Using Uber reports my location (and god knows what else) to Uber 24/7 and I am even paying for the electricity and hardware to do it. While the cops may get such records form the phone company, Uber just demanding, taking them is an insult. Why would anyone sane accept those terms of service?
The intent of Uber is a world wide (or as wide as they can get) monopoly. Its business model is a losing proposition at its current pricing rates. When other alternatives (some better, some worse) have been wiped out it will exploit that monopoly and not only price wise. It will have the capacity to make areas popular or unpopular and all the influence that comes with that.
They are not even subtle about it. You know what "uber" means don't you? Google übermensch and uber alles.
Understand how all your best local and state workers are been discovered and tracked digitally.
Walking into and staying in a gov building kind of shows that on average a person might work for a gov but its not 9 to 5 but way more than a normal private sector person needing something from their gov as a one time visit.
People who report back to a gov building for a few hours per week might be undercover. That sorts most of the private sector visits and normal gov workers.
Some low tech ways to counter such easy tracking.
Hire new staff and ensure they never enter a city, state gov building. A private sector front company to work from.
Use a trendy phone and app like as average person would. The brand of device matches the average call rate and cost of the service.
Using a service at 10am or 2pm more than average from a very cheap phone is not normal in a nation of workers at work.
South African law enforcement faced such issues in the 1990's. Its older generation of expert undercover officers faced public comment.
Its new officers lacked decades of undercover skills. So teams got created that never went near any gov/police buildings. Skill sets got protected, teams trained and tracking such people who never showed any connection to law enforcement was difficult.
The way the CIA gets its staff into the US state department and ready for missions under US diplomatic cover in Russia.
Russia is able to look back over the entire public and private digital life of all US embassy staff using US public and very expensive private sector methods.
How does the CIA get its best into Russia? The CIA creates the perfect US government worker that finds an embassy job. Their past does not link back to some fancy US college, mil or in any way with anything that could be CIA. Such generational CIA teams can then move around Russia with Russia thinking they might really just be normal embassy staff. Just a normal worker walking around Russia. No CIA skill sets on show.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
These subsidies create false perceptions about transportation costs such as the one you voiced. People think Uber is doing it right and the traditional taxi companies have been doing it wrong the whole time.
The national taxi business is only worth $11 billion a year. Why is Uber so highly valued? Why is so much venture capital funding injected into Uber?!? Those investors are expecting to own a monopoly position in the transportation service market. Obviously, the intent of such a monopoly would be to ruthlessly squeeze as much money as possible out of consumers.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
We need a barrier to entry. We cannot afford to have unlimited competition in this market, because this market cannot price in congestion. Taxis are happy to bill you for their time even if you're sitting in gridlock. The system does not self-correct. Your further political arguments are uninteresting.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Obviously, the intent of such a monopoly would be to ruthlessly squeeze as much money as possible out of consumers.
That is the intent of nearly every for-profit business. However, I don't think you've thought this "monopoly" thing through. If Uber achieves their goals, and actually invalidates existing licensing systems, then anyone else who can afford to deploy the same sort of service as Uber can simply waltz in and do that. This is what makes guessing the end game for Uber so confusing. Are the execs just planning to sell the name and run before the law closes its hand around their collective throats? Because if they actually succeed in blowing open the taxicab market, it provides just as much opportunity to their competitors as it does to anyone else.
The odds are pretty good that all automakers are going to own rental fleets of autonomous vehicles. I, for one, have no intention of getting into one without a glass-breaking hammer any time soon, but that's a whole other discussion :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Your fake bolded insertions would make my real story into a fake story.
The TLC police force is totally legal in NYC, and operates as a special-purpose police force for taxi regulations. It has a long history of thuggish abuse:
http://nypost.com/2014/11/27/d...
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-yo...
The second link contains additional citations of its own.
Before anyone jumps in, I know they're not publicly traded.
Did you know they're not publicly traded?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it