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Uber CEO Plays with Fire

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#271

Post by whyenot »

atom-morgan wrote: post #80
whyenot wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this would never have happened without him How can you be so sure of this? The person who came up with the concept behind Uber was not Kalanick, it was Garrett Camp. http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-travis-kalanick-bio-2014...

I don't think he means the idea wouldn't have happened without him. It's his ability to disrupt an industry tightly coupled with government.

So essentially he's another Brian Chesky, or Anne Wojcicki who was willing to break the rules. This is not a characteristic unique to Kalanick and I don't see why something like Uber wouldn't have come along eventually without him.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#273

Post by gdulli »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #152
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..

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

How is it a scandal? Competitive intel is a normal and widespread thing and it's not a scandal that people don't read a privacy policy that says, "We may collect, use, transfer, sell, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose."

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#274

Post by gdulli »

jldugger wrote: post #208
rosser wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From their own site: "Unroll.Me is a free service ", emphasis added. If it's free for you, you're the product.

While it's generally true, I'm not sure that's really an excuse for deceptive behavior.

Since the privacy policy explains in clear English that your data will be sold it would be more deceptive if they didn't sell your data.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#275

Post by chinathrow »

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…

A friend recommended unroll.me once. I carefully read their ToS and it was clear that they get full read access to your whole Gmail-Inbox.

Now we know what they are doing it and how. I hope they get shutdown within the aftermath of this story.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#276

Post by chinathrow »

ovi256 wrote: post #178
adg wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What you read on the public site is the USP for the users that install the unroll.me app. They are not the economic buyers, the ones who pay for the service. Those are the people that buy the user's aggregate data. They get in-person pitches on confidential slides, because if their USP leaked to the public, nobody would install and use the app.

"if their USP leaked to the public"

That just happen, at last.

Slide deck 1 of 44: "Learn how your competitors are doing."

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#277

Post by gdulli »

mathattack wrote: post #166
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…

If they sell your receipt data to Uber, who else might they sell it to? An insurance company? A hedge fund? Your bank?

They would never know who "your" bank is. Reading a few paragraphs near the top of the privacy policy could have cleared up the initial misunderstanding about the nature of the service and also any FUD about how the data is used.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#278

Post by LoSboccacc »

user5994461 wrote: post #252
greenyoda wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps to identify a device from which a fraudulent transaction occurred in the past?

Because you don't want any phone in the world to be allowed to access any bank account in the world by just giving a name and password. Fingerprinting is a form of 2 factor authentication, it's easy to perform and it's relatively efficient against fraud.

as if used phones market doesn't exists

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#279

Post by LoSboccacc »

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…

have you been to Italy? maybe your situation is better, but here is a cesspool.

Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire

#280

Post by gdulli »

chinathrow wrote: post #275
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…

A friend recommended unroll.me once. I carefully read their ToS and it was clear that they get full read access to your whole Gmail-Inbox. Now we know what they are doing it and how. I hope they get shutdown within the aftermath of this story.

Why on earth would a service get shut down for allowing consenting adults to opt into an agreement that allows anonymized data to be shared in a compliant way?
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