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L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes

latimes.com

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Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes

#121

Post by arbie »

icebraining wrote: post #107
chimi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Uber is above the law. That's not a glib statement. They really are. They don't get taxi medallions. They don't follow employment law. Why would they follow this law? They are a corporation. They can break laws with impunity. If it's in their self interest, they will. They've shown themselves to us. They don't care about the law. End of story. Why have we lauded this company as a darling? Breaking laws isn't resp…

Don't worry; in a few decades their position will be established and rules changed to accommodate them, and some other user will be here defending those changed rules against some new newcomers which think themselves above the law. That's what happened to the NY taxi drivers of the time, who won their rules by rioting and setting other people's property on fire.

This is a fascinating piece of history, the Taxi Riots of 1934: https://untappedcities.com/2015/02/05/today-in-nyc-history-t...

Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes

#122

Post by defeatist »

jonfw wrote: post #55
bko wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you feel the same way if Uber complied privately and the article read: "Uber shares real-time rider information with government agency"? It seems like Uber can't win. If they share information, they're violating the trust and privacy of their riders. If they don't they still don't care about privacy but they're now also flouting regulators.

It seems like privacy issues are inherent to Uber's business model, and there is nothing they can really do to remedy that.

That’s rather defeatist. They could use the data for setting up the ride and then throw it away after the ride is complete. Their app could keep a local record for you that’s not shared with the company. There are a ton of ways they could protect your privacy but they actively choose not to.

Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes

#123

Post by SilasX »

wonnage wrote: post #103
SilasX wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree Uber should try to find a way to satisfy the intent of the law, but you're basically saying that everyone should blindly obey every law or not operate. That's way too strong a principle to lean on. I could do a word swap on your very comment and turn it into a defense of e.g. Jim Crow laws.

HN, where Uber not being able to run their scooters is equal to Jim Crow because “word swap”

I wasn't comparing

a) LA demanding scooter data

to

b) LA demanding businesses segregate customers.

I was comparing:

c) Uber should share scooter data with LA (or shut down) because The Law

to

d) Uber should segregate customers (or shut down) because The Law.

Do you agree that c) and d) are poorly justified, and that if you believe one you should believe the other?

I agree that there are reasons why the data-sharing requirement is a much more defensible law than Jim Crow [1]. But sailfast wasn't making those arguments, s/he was just saying Uber should share that data simply because it's the law. That's not a good reason, and as well justified as saying they should comply with Jim Crow because it's the law.

[1] Hence why I said Uber should look for a middle ground that satisfies the nobler intents of the law.

Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes

#125

Post by tqi »

my_usernam3 wrote: post #113
lone_haxx0r wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why shouldn't they have access to the same type of data or where these scooters are? How hard is it to open up an API? They don't have the right to know where I go.

You as an individual I agree; there should be no disclosure of customers themselves. However, I do think the city deserves to know in real time where all the 30 pound lithium ion battery and motor, pieces of litter are.

I think it's more complicated than that though.

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-los-angeles-sco...

> The data would not include a rider’s name, but even in sprawling metropolitan areas, paths between home, work and school are typically unique, experts say. Someone with basic coding skills and access to the data could easily connect a trip to an individual person.

> “This data is incredibly, incredibly sensitive,” said Jeremy Gillula, the technology projects director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital rights group.

Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes

#126

Post by dwild »

supercanuck wrote: post #116
Karunamon wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a private company having access to GPS data and the government having access to GPS data are two different threat models with different concerns.

The "elected representatives by the citizens of Los Angeles" (Government) are accessing GPS Data about a companies property in its jurisdiction because the companies are not regulating their own behavior and property. This is where citizens need to advocate in their own neighborhoods and get involved and vote if that is what they want.

Thus you are agreeing that the government should get access to every phone calls, because some people may use it for illegal purpose and phone company doesn't regulate their behavior?

If you have an issue with how theses companies operate, stop theses ways of operating, that's all. The solution isn't to deanonymize the userbase.

Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes

#127

Post by chimi »

icebraining wrote: post #107
chimi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Uber is above the law. That's not a glib statement. They really are. They don't get taxi medallions. They don't follow employment law. Why would they follow this law? They are a corporation. They can break laws with impunity. If it's in their self interest, they will. They've shown themselves to us. They don't care about the law. End of story. Why have we lauded this company as a darling? Breaking laws isn't resp…

Don't worry; in a few decades their position will be established and rules changed to accommodate them, and some other user will be here defending those changed rules against some new newcomers which think themselves above the law. That's what happened to the NY taxi drivers of the time, who won their rules by rioting and setting other people's property on fire.

That's not what Wikipedia says [1]:

> During the Great Depression, New York had as many as 30,000 cab drivers. With more drivers than passengers, cab drivers were working longer hours, which led to growing public concern over the maintenance and mechanical integrity of taxi vehicles.

Have you re-written history to support Uber's lawlessness?

If the reality is the law was created to protect passengers, then Uber is actually repeating the same mistakes of history. People are hurt. Laws are passed. People are less hurt. People forget why the law was passed. People break the law. People get hurt again. Same thing as the great depression itself, which caused a glut of cabs and then after the 2008 crash, Uber saves the day by doing exactly the same thing: Creating too many cabs such that each cab doesn't make enough money anymore and consumers are at risk and if cars weren't built so much better now than the 1930's perhaps even more so.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City#1930...

Edit: I see arby's link below. I can see how violence contributed to the medallion system. I still think the use of law in that case is justified to quell the unrest. Yes, perhaps we could have put the violent cabbies in jail too, but would that be better for society than regulation designed to balance the supply / demand curve?

Uber has upset that balance and now we have to write a bunch more laws to regulate Uber, which just seems like a step backwards for those doomed to repeat history.

Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes

#128

Post by dwild »

tyxodiwktis wrote: post #64

The core issue is that ridership data is a key piece the cities need to craft a tax on ride-sharing, and to tailor the tax to help their financially challenged public transit entities. Uber knows that if they give up scooter use data the city will immediately request it for ride sharing as well. The privacy question conveniently aligns with Uber’s position, but I doubt that this is Uber’s core concern vs avoiding eve…

> The core issue is that ridership data is a key piece the cities need to craft a tax on ride-sharing,

Can you explain how the real time data can be used for that and why not some aggregated anonymized data, or data gathered by the government observation themselves?

Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes

#129

Post by DuskStar »

scelerat wrote: post #120
robomartin wrote: post #86

This is preposterous. Imagine government requiring any business to delivery real time data on customer behavior, from doctors to restaurants, Walmart to dispensaries. The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution is about privacy FROM GOVERNMENT INTRUSION, which is precisely what this is, an intrusive act on the part of government. Why don't they devote their time and effort to actually fixing the crumbling infrastruct…

Fourth amendment deals with "unreasonable" search and seizure. It could be argued that municipalities requesting data on usage of infrastructure they must maintain, fund and plan for is not unreasonable.

By that metric, requiring that all cars report their location live to the municipal government would be OK - after all, that car is using the roads they maintain. For that matter, why limit it to cars? Require that every citizen report their GPS location 24/7 - if you're out of the house you're using their roads or sidewalks, and if you're in the house you're using city water/power/sewer.

Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes

#130

Post by dwild »

michaelt wrote: post #3

I guess I don't see any way a dockless bike/scooter rental scheme can be compatible with privacy. Their need to know where available bikes are, and to be able to detect thefts makes it hard to imagine they could work without GPS tracking. And as soon as you know who rented what bike when, and where each bike went, you're going to start knowing customers' homes, workplaces and places of worship. Although the governmen…

Your ISP have ALL your internet data. Would you be okay if they shared it with the government? Sure they hold it temporarily, but they NEED to hold it to carry their business, even for a short amount of time. The same is true for theses scooters. In the case of the ISP, you trust them to destroy that data once it's moved to the next node, in the case of the scooters, the same can be true.

Thus, either you are fine with the government getting this data, simply because you don't trust Uber, or you are agreeing that the ISP should also share its data with the government in real time.

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