Had Travis Kalanick been driven to win at whatever cost, he would have made sure there is no sexual harassment at his company.
And he would have given everyone a unicorn.
Uber CEO Plays with Fire
341–350 of 529 posts
Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
They wouldn't 'get shut down' for it, but if the service was transparent about what they were doing people would likely unsubscribe/cease to sign up. It really depends if anyone is prepared to take them to task on it. > 'consenting adults' Are you consenting if you don't know what you're consenting to. > anonymized data Widely understood that anonymized data is bullshit, which is why the term "de-anonymized" exists.…
Deciding not to read the terms of service isn't the same as being in a situation without transparency.
The beef industry would also collapse if all the meat-eaters who thought killing animals wasn't ideal in principle had to watch the cow get killed before every meal.
Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
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..
I worked for a company that nearly acquired unroll.me. At the time, which was over three years ago, they had kept a copy of every single email of yours that you sent or received while a part of their service. Those emails were kept in a series of poorly secured S3 buckets. A large part of Slice buying unroll.me was for access to those email archives. Specifically, they wanted to look for keyword trends and for receip…
In terms only of capabilities, that makes me wonder a lot about Gmail. I don't see anything there that they couldn't do if they wished to do it on a far grander scale.
Granted, I tend to think the people who run Gmail are more honest than that, but if someday the wrong people retired and others took over or what have you, I wonder just how suddenly that could change?
Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire
#344Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
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..
I worked for a company that nearly acquired unroll.me. At the time, which was over three years ago, they had kept a copy of every single email of yours that you sent or received while a part of their service. Those emails were kept in a series of poorly secured S3 buckets. A large part of Slice buying unroll.me was for access to those email archives. Specifically, they wanted to look for keyword trends and for receip…
tech has become a cesspool of slimy founders + and unbridled capitalism - this needs to stop for the greater good
Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
This type of unsubstantive, inflammatory comment has a wholly predictable and undesirable effect on these threads. Please don't post like this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> This type of unsubstantive, inflammatory comment ... My comment doesn't have these properties, in fact it's the conventional view, as shown here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201201... There's no way to have a meaningful conversation about Kalanick -- or Steve Jobs -- without addressing these issues. Would you prefer that topics having a psychological dimension be categorically excluded fro…
There is nothing conventional about psychology. You might as well have posted a link to a scientology article.
Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire
#347The buried lede here is that Apple did nothing to protect users from a company that openly and willfully strip-mined their privacy in violation of App Store rules.
I guess you didn't understand the buried lede then. Apple forced them to stop. The offense was extremely minor and didn't hurt anyones privacy (unless you view iPhones as persons).
Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
>" Some Uber drivers there would then create dozens of fake email addresses to sign up for new Uber rider accounts attached to each phone, and request rides from those phones, which they would then accept. Since Uber was handing out incentives to drivers to take more rides, the drivers could earn more money this way." Could someone explain the logic behind how a driver requesting rides benefited them? Did the drivers…
Yes, in the earlier days in each city, they (just pulling numbers from thin air) do something like pay a minimum $20 for each trip if you complete 5 trips within an hour without cancellation. Helps to kickstart the driver supply.
Thanks for the explanations.
Interesting and somewhat ironic to think that Uber had to put countermeasures in place against drivers engaging in their own questionable version of "growth hacking."
Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire
#349Is there a possibility of a class action lawsuit against Apple for this? They knowingly let Uber track customers after the app was removed. Isn't any user who deleted the app during that time allowed damages?
First, when Apple found out they made Uber stop and they eliminated the API hole that was used.
Maybe you meant they knowingly allowed Uber to do on iOS what any app can commonly do on Android? Apple works very hard to protect users privacy, it doesn't guarantee it. Android doesn't guarantee it either, and doesn't try very hard to protect it.
Re: Uber CEO Plays with Fire
#350Earlier 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.
It is literally one of the criteria that the IRS uses to decide whether someone is an employee or an independent contractor.
From https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe... : "In determining whether the person providing service is an employee or an independent contractor, all information that provides evidence of the degree of control and independence must be considered."
One of the categories of control and independence is behavioral, which is described here: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...
It says: "An employee is generally subject to the business’s instructions about when, where, and how to work."
Uber, Lyft, etc. leave the driver to decide which car they drive, where they buy gas, which jobs they take, and when they work or don't work. This is a big part of what goes into justifying their legal status as contractors rather than employees.