L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes
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Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes
#2Headline misleads, L.A. intends to suspend Jump, an Uber subsidary. They have time to appeal until Friday.
Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes
#3I 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 government and uber knowing this data is less private than uber alone knowing, we all know uber doesn't give a shit about customer privacy. Personally I'd be much more worried about uber having the data in the first place than about the government also having the data.
Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes
#4I 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…
Almost every possible transportation service is like this. If you really need privacy, don't use public or paid transport.
Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes
#5Headline misleads, L.A. intends to suspend Jump, an Uber subsidary. They have time to appeal until Friday.
But apparently it’s Uber who wants to sue the city.
Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes
#6Headline misleads, L.A. intends to suspend Jump, an Uber subsidary. They have time to appeal until Friday.
Yeah, I was picturing the chaos if the UBER app suddenly stopped working all of a sudden.
Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes
#7I 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…
I expect Uber to care a lot about privacy. They’ve burned themselves badly before disrespecting privacy and I assume they’ve improved in that area immensely. Uber’s and their employees’ own interests are aligned with strong data privacy.
The same cannot be said for the government.
Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes
#8I 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…
Without GPS or internet: put the bike at a cross road and tell the app (or call center) at which cross road you put it. Every now and then they get serviced, if the bike is not where you put it as the last owner, you pay a fine. That’s how it worked for years in Munich, Germany.
That way the bike doesn’t even need internet. To unlock the bike it generates a code with a key which is on the bike.
I don’t see how GPS prevents theft for small items like a bike. There is a lot of bigger farming machinery stolen despite their GPS.
Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes
#9I 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…
Without GPS or internet: put the bike at a cross road and tell the app (or call center) at which cross road you put it. Every now and then they get serviced, if the bike is not where you put it as the last owner, you pay a fine. That’s how it worked for years in Munich, Germany. That way the bike doesn’t even need internet. To unlock the bike it generates a code with a key which is on the bike. I don’t see how GPS pr…
> if the bike is not where you put it as the last owner, you pay a fine
How do they tell the difference between the last user not returning it, and the bike being stolen with bolt cutters after the last user returned it properly?
Re: L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes
#10I 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…
I expect Uber to care a lot about privacy. They’ve burned themselves badly before disrespecting privacy and I assume they’ve improved in that area immensely. Uber’s and their employees’ own interests are aligned with strong data privacy. The same cannot be said for the government.
> I assume they’ve improved in that area immensely.
Why would you assume that without significant reason? This is a company that has, as you said, had problems with privacy.
2015, tracking concerns hit the news. [0]
2017, there's a class action. [1] And FTC auditing. [2]
2018, there's massive fines. [3]
We're in 2019, years on from actual problems being raised, and then being forced to confronted. How are Uber doing on that front?
> By focusing on global hiring, you will have people on the ground in other regions who can better understand the local laws, better understand the culture that drove the laws and how a new law is likely to be enforced, and build better relationships with regulators and other influencers.
Sounds more like they're interested in controlling the laws, not actually improving themselves overall.
(And none of this is to suggest the government is any way a better caretaker - they're worse in almost every way.)
[0] https://www.wired.com/insights/2015/01/uber-privacy-woes-cau...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/24/uber-hell...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/technology/uber-agrees-to...
[3] https://techwireasia.com/2019/08/uber-chief-privacy-officer-...