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Uber CEO Plays with Fire

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#151

Post by blackmarker »

ErikAugust wrote: post #138

Buried lede here: "They spent much of their energy one-upping rivals like Lyft. Uber devoted teams to so-called competitive intelligence, purchasing data from an analytics service called Slice Intelligence. Using an email digest service it owns named Unroll.me, Slice collected its customers’ emailed Lyft receipts from their inboxes and sold the anonymized data to Uber. Uber used the data as a proxy for the health of…

Every company with large resources does this. NYT gains more clicks and views with this angle.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#152

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

ErikAugust wrote: post #138

Buried lede here: "They spent much of their energy one-upping rivals like Lyft. Uber devoted teams to so-called competitive intelligence, purchasing data from an analytics service called Slice Intelligence. Using an email digest service it owns named Unroll.me, Slice collected its customers’ emailed Lyft receipts from their inboxes and sold the anonymized data to Uber. Uber used the data as a proxy for the health of…

Wow I think this unroll.me thing is the real scandal here.

I am an unroll.me user, but had no idea they sell user data to companies this way.

Their whole value proposition is to help people control their own privacy and now I kind of feel betrayed..

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#153

Post by smokeyj »

tyingq wrote: post #117
hsod wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really doesn't match up with how the conversation/outrage is playing out on Twitter right now. People seem to be interpreting this as "Uber continues to track your location after you have deleted the app," when what really happened seemed to be "If you delete Uber and then reinstall it on the same phone, Uber knows that it's the same phone." See for example this Tweet, with hundreds of retweets and lots of verif…

That's true, but there's a bit of live by the sword, die by the sword here. Uber is no stranger to the power of propaganda with their campaigns on the sharing economy, unions, regulations, etc.

Because we all expect journalistic integrity from Uber. Uber provides a service people need. Journalism is blogspam garbage.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#154

Post by loso »

rhino369 wrote: post #74
taude wrote: post #18

I really hope Lyft doesn't do anything to screw up, as I've uninstalled Uber and will probably never use the service again. However, I don't see myself going back to regular taxi system as that's even more corrupt and despicable. I just hope Lyft plays the game with a social conscious and makes positive decisions and continues to treat drivers well (most Lyft drivers I talk to say they like driving for Lyft way bette…

>regular taxi system as that's even more corrupt and despicable. The idea that the taxis are corrupt and despicable is 100% Uber/Lyft propaganda. The idea that a bunch of immigrants driving 12 hours a day to support a meager income for their families are a cabal of special interests is ridiculous. Uber and Lyft are better than taxis because of the on demand nature and they are cheaper because of better utilization. B…

No this not Uber propaganda. The NYC taxi union did horrible crap while I lived in NYC. For example, before the rise of Uber Yellow cabs would do their best not to service Uptown and places like it. So instead we had a replacement service which were known as "gypsy cabs". Basically town cars that weren't supposed to pick up people on the street, only by appointment, but they did anyway.

This happened so much that Bloomberg said screw it and was basically turned a blind eye to what they were doing and let them operate. The NYC Taxi Union got pissed and complained. But while complaining they still basically said in so many words that they still weren't going to service the area. They just didn't want anyone else to.

I had a cab driver pick up my ex girlfriend and her coworkers and pull something shady along the lines of this. They were being dropped in mid town. She was being dropped off uptown. When he dropped her coworkers off, he drove a few more blocks and stopped the cab and told her she had to get out. He wasn't going to drive all the way to Uptown.

So yeah I was glad when Uber gave them competition. Now when I go to NYC I have no problems out of the cab drivers like I used to.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#155

Post by adg »

ErikAugust wrote: post #138

Buried lede here: "They spent much of their energy one-upping rivals like Lyft. Uber devoted teams to so-called competitive intelligence, purchasing data from an analytics service called Slice Intelligence. Using an email digest service it owns named Unroll.me, Slice collected its customers’ emailed Lyft receipts from their inboxes and sold the anonymized data to Uber. Uber used the data as a proxy for the health of…

This jumped out at me, too. Here's how Unroll.me describes their service:

  Clean up your inbox
  Instantly see a list of all your subscription emails. 
  Unsubscribe easily from whatever you don’t want.
It's not clear at all that they are reading people's emails and selling the data.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#156

Post by Pulcinella »

Retric wrote: post #63
bmelton wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think you can support a ridesharing company that by design treats employees as contractors and also be socially conscious I don't understand why not. I have a total of five friends who have each chosen to drive for various ridesharing companies, and in the conversations I've had with them, it seems pretty clear that none of them would be drivers if they couldn't set their own schedules, or if they were othe…

Flexible schedules has almost nothing to do with employees vs contractors.

Uh yes it does. If you are sitting your own hours, they definitely points towards contractor.

https://www.oregon.gov/ODA/shared/Documents/Publications/Nat...

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#157

Post by pseudalopex »

ars wrote: post #49
zitterbewegung wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can support a ridesharing company that by design treats employees as contractors and also be socially conscious . If you really want to do this use public transportation .

> I don't think you can support a ridesharing company that by design treats employees as contractors and also be socially conscious . I fail to see what one has to do with the other. Can you explain? Seems to me the opposite is the case - as a contractor the driver has full control, but as an employee how hard he works has little to do with how much he gets paid.

About the only thing the drivers control is when they work. They can't negotiate their rates. A 4.5/5 average rating gets them fired. Uber penalizes them for declining less profitable jobs. So the argument is that the drivers are actually employees, and classifying them as contractors is a way to dodge taxes and externalize risk.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#158

Post by maxerickson »

macspoofing wrote: post #126
maxerickson wrote: post #24

It'd be nice if Apple had been less pragmatic and more principled and just yanked any version of the Uber app that broke the rules.

That only seems like the right move because this week you hate Uber.

No, I'm pretty indifferent to Uber.

Read plainly, I'd call my comment a criticism of Apple and people that might be congratulating them for working the issue out behind the scenes.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#159

Post by [deleted] »

smokeyj wrote: post #153
tyingq wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but there's a bit of live by the sword, die by the sword here. Uber is no stranger to the power of propaganda with their campaigns on the sharing economy, unions, regulations, etc.

Because we all expect journalistic integrity from Uber. Uber provides a service people need. Journalism is blogspam garbage.

[deleted]

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#160

Post by [deleted] »

smokeyj wrote: post #153
tyingq wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but there's a bit of live by the sword, die by the sword here. Uber is no stranger to the power of propaganda with their campaigns on the sharing economy, unions, regulations, etc.

Because we all expect journalistic integrity from Uber. Uber provides a service people need. Journalism is blogspam garbage.

[deleted]
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