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How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

nytimes.com

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Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#51

Post by RangerScience »

I'm confused by what laws were broken by Greyball. It's certainly deceptive, but is that illegal?

In these cases I'm sympathetic to Uber -

Let's call it "don't delay the pie to get your slice". One of the types of circumstances described is where a municipality doesn't know how to handle ride-shares, so Uber does questionable things to get ride-shares going while the legal situation is figured out. This seems reasonable (within bounds) - because: should the municipality be able to delay the pie while they figure out how to get their slice? Not exactly incentivized to do it in a timely manner; while, if the pie is out there happening, they're incentivized to get their slice in a timely fashion.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#52

Post by PunchTornado »

HorizonXP wrote: post #6

How diabolical! In a world where privacy has been traded away for convenience, it's poetic justice where a startup uses data mining techniques to subvert the government. This is the same government that would have no issues to use the same techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives. I'm neither on Uber nor the government's side in this case, just simply making an observation. The lack of data privacy see…

In care of companies we can change things very easy. Just stop using them.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#53

Post by PunchTornado »

HorizonXP wrote: post #6

How diabolical! In a world where privacy has been traded away for convenience, it's poetic justice where a startup uses data mining techniques to subvert the government. This is the same government that would have no issues to use the same techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives. I'm neither on Uber nor the government's side in this case, just simply making an observation. The lack of data privacy see…

In care of companies we can change things very easy. Just stop using them.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#55

Post by lr4444lr »

colemickens wrote: post #17
oculusthrift wrote: post #8

I'm not excusing Uber at all because what they've done is extremely bad in multiple cases but find it strange all these hit pieces are coming out of the wood works. There is a large section of society that hates Uber and will spring at any chance to bring it down. Which is partially what I think happened with the whole #boycottUber thing and the new video of kalanick yelling at the driver. However, the sexism and dys…

Comments like this confuse me. Are you accusing the author of fabricating facts? Do you contest the facts or testimonies in the article? What is the justification for calling this a "hit piece"? Did you actually read it? Why is it surprising that a company under the spotlight... winds up with more journalistic investigations?

When I was in high school, a teacher I had for a video journalism course emphatically hammered home the point that there was no such thing as unbiased media: the stories you choose to cover or not cover, the use of pretty much any adjective, the phrasing of the headline, placement, abundance of quotes, frequency of consulting expert opinions, use of statistics of varying quality, etc. create an inescapable subjectivity.

For quite some time I scoffed at this as social marxist nonsense useful to launch any kind of conspiracy theory, but there might be a point to it in smaller scales, especially if the editors are beholden to the almighty gods of clicks and page views from an audience hungry for a narrative.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#58

Post by rrdharan »

mikeash wrote: post #41
andrewflnr wrote: post #30

I don't see why this is so bad. They're a private business, and they're allowed to do business with whom they will. It doesn't really change anything w.r.t the fact that they're skirting regulation, especially if the given origin story is true. Pretty tame compared to the other stuff we've been seeing from Uber, lately.

Displaying ghost cars and false cancellations strikes me as fraud, at the very least.

I kind of doubt it. It's not like you enter into a contract with Uber just by downloading the app, and I don't think you have a legal right to use their services. Maybe you could drum up some sort of civil rights violation? But I don't think law enforcement is actually a protected class...

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#59

Post by jobu »

oculusthrift wrote: post #8

I'm not excusing Uber at all because what they've done is extremely bad in multiple cases but find it strange all these hit pieces are coming out of the wood works. There is a large section of society that hates Uber and will spring at any chance to bring it down. Which is partially what I think happened with the whole #boycottUber thing and the new video of kalanick yelling at the driver. However, the sexism and dys…

There's definitely some piling on by former employees and reporters. It seems to be a bit of a human trait, and I remember some of this happening to Amazon in the wake of the NY Times piece a couple years ago (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-...).

That said, the dirt coming from Uber seems to be a lot worse and a lot more widespread for a company that is 1/30th the size of what Amazon was 2 years ago.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#60

Post by DannyBee »

andrewflnr wrote: post #30

I don't see why this is so bad. They're a private business, and they're allowed to do business with whom they will. It doesn't really change anything w.r.t the fact that they're skirting regulation, especially if the given origin story is true. Pretty tame compared to the other stuff we've been seeing from Uber, lately.

"Q: What sorts of acts may constitute obstruction of justice?

A: Obstruction may consist of any attempt to hinder the discovery, apprehension, conviction or punishment of anyone who has committed a crime.

Q: Does obstruction of justice always involve bribery or physical force?

A: No. One particularly murky category of obstruction is the use of "misleading conduct" toward another person for the purpose of obstructing justice. "Misleading conduct" may consist of deliberate lies or "material omissions" (leaving out facts which are crucial to a case). It may also include knowingly submitting or inviting a judge or jury to rely on false or misleading physical evidence, such as documents, maps, photographs or other objects. Any other "trick, scheme, or device with intent to mislead" may constitute a "misleading conduct" form of obstruction. "

If the city has made it actually illegal to drive uber vehicles, this is pretty much textbook obstruction on the part of uber, ....

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