Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
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Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#2Personally, I've stopped using Uber because of the lack of the company/management's lack of ethics. Lyft comes off as a much friendly, consumer-focused company & frankly, my experiences have been better in a Lyft than an UberX.
Also - I'm not one to usually browse Buzzfeed, but this was their story to break, so props to them for getting it out there.
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#3Attempting to blackmail the press if they challenge your company's PR? Specifically targeting parents' worst fears by threatening to reveal details of the location of their children? Openly rifling through the location metadata of another female journalist, a customer of theirs, without her consent? Implicitly saying they'll leak customer data of Uber customers who are journalists, the kind of thing that can potentially endanger sources and compromise whistleblowers?
These people are scum. Uber was a neat app, but I have PLENTY of alternatives these days.
I opt out at airports, I donate to the EFF, I don't use Uber or any other app that targets people's privacy and actively threatens the freedom of the press.
(Oh, and like Sarah Lacey, I'm a mom of young kids too. Reading that article induced such a shudder of horror, and will likely do the same for any parent who reads, or even hears about, that story. Uber has done major, major damage to their brand on a visceral level.)
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#4I get the competitive nature that Uber's taken against Lyft / Sidecar, but this seems like the worst thing yet.
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#5Also, it was Travis who said “We’re in a political campaign, and the candidate is Uber and the opponent is an asshole named Taxi,"
Well, it seems we have come full circle. Who's the asshole now?
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#6[deleted]
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#7[deleted]
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#8There is another recent HN article. It links to a Pando post by Sarah Lacy, the journalist being threatened. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8622187
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#9Attempting to blackmail the press if they challenge your company's PR? Specifically targeting parents' worst fears by threatening to reveal details of the location of their children? Openly rifling through the location metadata of another female journalist, a customer of theirs, without her consent? Implicitly saying they'll leak customer data of Uber customers who are journalists, the kind of thing that can potentia…
You don't say things like this to an audience containing media members and not expect it to get out. Not only that, but by the same token this is in no way "attempted" blackmail. Are we supposed to assume Uber does not already buy 1MM PR spends?
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#10Attempting to blackmail the press if they challenge your company's PR? Specifically targeting parents' worst fears by threatening to reveal details of the location of their children? Openly rifling through the location metadata of another female journalist, a customer of theirs, without her consent? Implicitly saying they'll leak customer data of Uber customers who are journalists, the kind of thing that can potentia…
You don't say things like this to an audience containing media members and not expect it to get out. Not only that, but by the same token this is in no way "attempted" blackmail. Are we supposed to assume Uber does not already buy 1MM PR spends?
Yeah, if this is the shit they do and talk about in public, WTF do they do and talk about in private?
EDIT: Oh my God, they also have the location data of the comings and goings of lots of politicians and industry regulators, don't they? Late night trips from locations some of those people might not want made public? If they'll so casually threaten a mother's kids, threaten journalists with $1M smear campaigns, what else have they already done?