Slashdot Mirror
Here's the Letter Alleging Uber Spied on Individuals For Competitive Intelligence (recode.net)
The judge in the $1.9 billion civil suit between Google-parent company Alphabet's self-driving car unit Waymo and Uber released the letter of a disgruntled former employee -- former Uber security officer Richard Jacobs -- on Friday, laying bare a number of explosive allegations against the ride-hailing company that include corporate espionage, unlawful surveillance, illegal wiretapping, bribery of foreign officials, and illicit hacking. From a report: The letter read: "This program, formerly known as the Strategic Services Group, under Nick Gicinto, collected intelligence and conducted unauthorized surveillance, including unauthorized recording of private conversations against executives from competitor firms, such as DiDi Chuxing and against its own employees and contractors at the Autonomous Technologies Group in Pittsburgh." Jacobs testified in court and walked back some of the allegations made in the letter, which was written by his attorney, Clayton Halunen. Days later, Uber's new chief legal officer Tony West issued a directive to employees to stop surveilling individuals, which Recode first reported. In a separate note to staff Khosrowshahi (current CEO of Uber) said the letter detailed enough to "merit serious concern." While Jacobs, Padilla (Uber's general counsel) and other employees addressed some of the claims made within the letter -- confirming the use of Wickr for business-related communications -- the letter itself had not been made public before Friday evening. The document prepared by Jacobs' attorney also claimed Uber was using some of these surveillance tactics on Alphabet's self-driving arm, Waymo. However, during his testimony, Jacobs walked that allegation back.
To list all the sleazy and illegal things Uber hasn't done.
BS, Uber didn't rock any boat... It's a parasite entity that attempts to suck profit off the back of "workers". Calling them "contractors", no benefits, using their own vehicles, competing against each other to drive down cost - by the time you factor in all costs and taxes (of which independent contractors pay ALL), these are sub-minimum wage gigs. Driving someone you don't know to a place you aren't going for money isn't "ride share", it's a taxi. period. And the drivers are shorted the most. This isn't a win.
these are sub-minimum wage gigs.
My sister drives for Uber and makes about $18 per hour after expenses. This is in line with the national average of about $20 per hour. Some areas are lower, with Detroit being the lowest at $8-$9 per hour, but even that is above minimum wage.
People are not as stupid and helpless as you assume. If Uber really paid sub-minimum wage, they wouldn't be able to attract drivers.
I've seen people with extensive training in engineering economics who do cost/benefit analysis at their day job make terrible financial decisions in their personal lives. Unlike catching a tossed ball, which seems to be built in to the brain, humans just aren't good at doing full lifecycle cost analysis and comparisons of different sets of expense/revenue streams outside of a rigorous and enforced framework - which is typically only found in a work context. Besides being fundamentally based on breaking the law Uber also takes advantage of that flaw in the plains ape brain living in a complex industrialized world.
It can be. It can also be a euphemism for "realized he just admitted on tape to several indictable felonies". Given that Uber's entire business model is based on breaking the law this instance could either.