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Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

businessinsider.com

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Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#121

Post by kbart »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #91

I've begun to ditch apps that I've perceived as going downhill regularly, and its been working out pretty well. Uber, Youtube, Facebook/Instagram, and Twitter have decent mobile sites. I can even silo whatever service I want into its own browser to limit tracking, and all location/permissions/etc are all sandboxed by the browser. A huge bonus is battery life + ad blocking.

Agreed 100%. I don't get it why anybody would need dozens of apps to spam you ads, drain battery life and collect your contacts, location data and whatnot when you can easily access the same services via a browser without all these mentioned drawbacks. An anecdote, but after cleaning my girlfriend's phone (she's asked for it), its battery life increased nearly twice and cell data usage was reduced by ~30%.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#122

Post by mindcrime »

onion2k wrote: post #71
michaelvoz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I work for Uber. However, my opinions are mine. I am also not defending nor attacking in any way Uber gathering location data. With that out of the way - you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? They have way better data than Uber ever will about all your habits, including establishing relationships based on who you call, which sites you visit, who you are signed up on a plan with, et…

I'll agree with your point as soon as Uber signs up to the same level of regulatory restrictions as every phone carrier enjoys. The fact is that there are laws that strictly prohibit my phone carrier doing certain things with data about my usage. Case in point, the stalking that the article mentions - I don't think employees of my phone carrier can do the same thing. Technically they could because they have the neces…

Uber has demonstrated that they can't be trusted with personal data

And the telecom carriers haven't? Please.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#123

Post by kbart »

sargun wrote: post #76

Let me ask a question of everyone complaining: why not use Lyft? I switched. Yeah, their prices are a little more than uber's, and their wait times are a bit higher, but these are functions of scale.

"Let me ask a question of everyone complaining: why not use Lyft? I switched."

Because Lyft is not so widely available. For example, only Uber is available where I live, though I still prefer traditional taxi because of (usually) better price, more reliable service, availability for short rides and privacy.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#124

Post by ranman »

singlow wrote: post #113
bigmofo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you lose your credit card and you call your credit card company and them them that you lost it, they issue you a new card with new numbers; this way anybody that had the information on the card would not be able to make further transactions. I would consider the card lost when a company would not delete the credit card information on my request to delete the information.

A new number doesn't necessarily prevent charges from vendors who had the old one. For your convenience the banks actually allow new charges on the old cards after they are cancelled. I assume they whitelist vendors that have good reputations or filter based on patterns of charges against your account which you have not disputed. Verizon was able to charge against my old account for over a year. I kept getting snail…

>In other cases, the bank will actually update the vendor with your new card number so that subscriptions are not interrupted.

That's apparently a feature: https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-accoun...

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#125

Post by JoshTriplett »

kbart wrote: post #118
jbronn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Unless they said otherwise in their TOS.

Actually, it depends on a country. For example, EU laws override ToS.

Only for companies under EU jurisdiction.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#126

Post by curryhowardiso »

robrenaud wrote: post #44
dominotw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So, no, I'm not surprised that this company is doing other unethical things - it sort of seems interwoven into their DNA. Grubhub refused to delete my account even after pleading with them to do so many many times. To me seems like a general tech company trend not something specific to uber.

Is it legal to refuse to delete a users account?

This is actually a great technical and legal question. And it depends a lot on the type of service you have, and which jurisdiction's law governs you and your service provider.

On the one hand, we have the EU's "right to be forgotten" actions against Google, which seem to be gaining ground and are essentially bona fide in their protection of the consumer/society, in the sense that it might be a good idea for other jurisdictions to adopt it as well.

But consider the EU (and worldwide) regulation of banking and transactional accounts. Particularly the prohibitions on money laundering and counter-terrorism funding (AML/CTF laws). You're not allowed to open and close a bunch of bank accounts, which means that you don't really have a "right to be forgotten" in this sense either. Nor, if you are not a "legit" user, should you be.

From a technical standpoint, how do you detect the law abiding citizens that want to close (in the sense of permanently deleting records) their account(s) from the malfeasant actors that want to launder money or fund terrorism by holding many accounts over time in order to obfuscate their transaction patterns.

It's an interesting question that the law -- and to a certain extent, the people -- have not yet got a good answer

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#127

Post by kalleboo »

mbreedlove wrote: post #27
llukas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL. That's why some banks have option to generate CC numbers on the fly and tying those numbers to particular vendor.

Who still does that? I know American Express used to offer one-time CC numbers, but no longer does.

My bank in Sweden supports it for their MasterCard debit cards

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#128

Post by kbart »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #125
kbart wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it depends on a country. For example, EU laws override ToS.

Only for companies under EU jurisdiction.

Pretty much all bigger companies have subsidiaries in EU (Uber included), so they must obey EU laws too. I think it's only a matter of time when Uber will get sued for privacy violations.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#129

Post by coldtea »

michaelvoz wrote: post #85
username223 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite the bad press it is actually a pretty freaking great place to work. So, how many hours a week do you drive? Oh, I'm sorry... those aren't "workers" -- they're just being nice and sharing their cars in their free time.

Actually I do drive. I drive so I can sympathize with the partners I am serving and better server them by making the product the rely on to make money better, and more reliable.

So, you occasionally drive Uber as an experiment/hobby, not as a job, which is not the same experience as relying on it for your next meal.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#130

Post by andygambles »

robrenaud wrote: post #44
dominotw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So, no, I'm not surprised that this company is doing other unethical things - it sort of seems interwoven into their DNA. Grubhub refused to delete my account even after pleading with them to do so many many times. To me seems like a general tech company trend not something specific to uber.

Is it legal to refuse to delete a users account?

HMRC (UK Tax Office) requires us to keep transactional information for 6 years.

Upon request we delete accounts but if they have transactional data this is still held in accordance with our legal requirements.

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