Uber's Massive Scraping Program Collected Data About Competitors Around The World (gizmodo.com)

Kate Conger, reporting for Gizmodo: For years, Uber systemically scraped data from competing ride-hailing companies all over the world, harvesting information about their technology, drivers, and executives. Uber gathered information from these firms using automated collection systems that ran constantly, amassing millions of records, and sometimes conducted physical surveillance to complement its data collection. Uber's scraping efforts were spearheaded by the company's Marketplace Analytics team, while the Strategic Services Group gathered information for security purposes, Gizmodo learned from three people familiar with the operations of these teams, from court testimony, and from internal Uber documents. Until Uber's data scraping was discontinued this September in the face of mounting litigation and multiple federal investigations, Marketplace Analytics gathered information on Uber's overseas competitors in an attempt to advance Uber's position in those markets. SSG's mission was to protect employees, executives, and drivers from violence, which sometimes involved tracking protesters and other groups that were considered threatening to Uber. An Uber spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

Comments

Cult like behaviour

[mfh]

The Cult of Scientology could learn a thing or two from Uber. They appear very grandiose and their vision is sociopathic to some extent as well as narcissistic. I cannot imagine how a company that would gouge so hard and yet governments do nothing about it for some strange reason.

Re:Cult like behaviour

[PCM2]

Damn, actually clicked the link to post essentially just that. Scientology is what immediately sprang to mind, especially given everything else we know about Uber.

Re:Cult like behaviour

[ShanghaiBill]

Here is a quick summary of what happened:

1. Uber's competitors placed information on a publicly accessible website.
2. Uber looked at it.

I am feeling a distinct lack of outrage.

Re:Cult like behaviour

[Anonymous Coward]

Mass data is not the same as one data point. If I know where you were once then I know almost nothing. If I know where you are all the time every day then I can predict where you will be and use that for whatever I wish.

Re:Cult like behaviour

[gnick]

Mass data is not the same as one data point.

But public data is public regardless of how much is there.

Marketplace analytics

[Anonymous Coward]

MBA-speak for corporate espionage.

Journalists too ...

[b0s0z0ku]

Remember when Nogoodnick's ... I mean Kalanick's ... henchmen went after Sarah Lacy and discussed ruining her reputation? It was enough to make her fear for her physical safety.

Start-up mentality

[Sarten-X]

When Google was founded, its motto was "don't be evil". Uber's motto seems to have been "be very evil".

It'll certainly be interesting to see how Uber's practices change as it matures... if it survives.

Re:Start-up mentality

[PolygamousRanchKid]

It'll certainly be interesting to see how Uber's practices change as it matures...

Mature? Why would they ever want to do that? Über's philosophy is to be the "Bad Ass Mother Fucker On The Block." If something is illegal, do it anyway and duke it out against the government in courts. This brashness and lack of respect for law makes them more attractive to venture capitalists.

A boxer who knees his opponent in the balls while the ref is distracted has a chance of winning. And exactly this "killer instinct" of Über will keep venture capitalists coming to them.

if it survives.

Über will never be Mr. Nice Guy. That goes against the whole grain of the company. They'll survive. Just look at the "bad guys" in professional wrestling . . .

Stalin, 1984 etc

[Hognoxious]

If the government did this people would be screaming from the rooftops and rioting in the streets.

But when a corporation does it with an app it's just clever business strategy.

Number one! Number one! Freedom and all that!

Re:Stalin, 1984 etc

[HornWumpus]

What are you on about now?

You're aware the government tracks every person you've ever repeatedly called on the phone? They denied it for decades. Snowden proved it. Been going on since WWII.

Yes, you too are subject to this. Not just Americans. In fact not being in America, it's more likely that American spooks are spying on you, while your nation's spooks are spying on people not in your nation. Abracadabra, no problem with rights to privacy, warrants etc.

Re:Stalin, 1984 etc

[ShanghaiBill]

If the government did this people would be screaming from the rooftops and rioting in the streets.

The government does this. So far no riots.

Key line from the article

[Attila Dimedici]

Here is the key line from the article: "It’s possible Uber’s data gathering did not violate any laws..."


Tanslation: We have no evidence that Uber did anything illegal in regards to its data gathering, but we want you to assume that they did while maintaining a defense against libel.

Re:Key line from the article

[Nidi62]

Here is the key line from the article: "It’s possible Uber’s data gathering did not violate any laws..." Tanslation: We have no evidence that Uber did anything illegal in regards to its data gathering, but we want you to assume that they did while maintaining a defense against libel.

It probably went against some websites TOS's though, which given the current state of our judicial system, should make the eligible for the death penalty and a fine large enough to put their grandchildren into crippling debt. Or at least, it would if Uber was a regular person, not a corporation.

Re:Key line from the article

[Anonymous Coward]

"Company does market research to see what the competition is doing" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Gotta appeal to that outrage to get them clicks.

Re:Key line from the article

[Attila Dimedici]

Possibly, but the writers of the article have no evidence that such is the case. Basically, they want you to think that Uber is evil for doing this and will manipulate the way they report the story in order to encourage you to think that way. Since they do not trust their readers to come to the same conclusion they did from a presentation of the facts, it makes me think there is a lot less to this story than is presented.

Re:Key line from the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, they want you to think that Uber is evil for doing this and will manipulate the way they report the story in order to encourage you to think that way.

Or, Uber has been proven evil so many times that they've lost the public's presumption of innocence.

Re:Key line from the article

[MoaDweeb]

Alternate translation: 'Uber may not have violated ant laws but on their past performance they probably have and covered it up.'

Re:Key line from the article

[Attila Dimedici]

The article's author should have trusted you to reach that conclusion by just presenting you with the facts, rather than try to slant their article to make you reach that conclusion. Here is how I would have worded that: "There is no evidence that Uber broke any laws with this data collection. However, they have been accused of/lost a lawsuit over ..." (I do not remember what the specific wrongdoing Uber was guilty of and am not willing to spend the time looking it up, but I remember that they were caught doing something which was illegal, and several other things which may not have broken the letter of the law but certainly broke the spirit of the law).

What exactly is the problem here?

[Anonymous Coward]

They collected public records about their competition. Seems like a good idea. The only problem is that they won't admit it. I am 100% certain they are not alone in "spying" on other businesses.

Re:What exactly is the problem here?

[Anonymous Coward]

They refused business to people. In many areas, taxis are required by law to take anyone where they want to go so long as the taxi company has enough cars on the road to do so and it isn't a crazy trip (like 5 states over). They're not allowed to pick and choose their customers, doing so would be illegal discrimination. Uber is rejecting people because they don't like them. They're discriminating based on career and political beliefs.

Those laws were added to taxis specifically because they used to discriminate against people. Uber can't even wait to become the dominate market position before flouting laws. They started ignoring laws within the first month of their existence and have never stopped. This is just another example about how corrupt Uber is and another reason to never believe what they say in the future.

Re:What exactly is the problem here?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are not a taxi company. If they were, they would have to play by taxi rules but clearly the government says they aren't so they aren't. Doesn't matter what we think.

Scraped public web pages?! The horror, the horror

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber is a POS, but not because they scrape public web pages. Kate Conger, you're an idiot.

Data

[Anonymous Coward]

The data were collected from the NSA or Google?

Astronomers...

[Lab Rat Jason]

In other news... astronomers collected data on millions - no, billions - of stars... stars are outraged and stage a protest... brown dwarfs take umbrage and request the more politically correct title of "fusionally challenged."

hmmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

When you work in a data center housing Uber machines hosted on Mac hardward...hmmm wonder what they're for.