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Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

businessinsider.com

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Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#141

Post by EasyTiger_ »

michaelvoz wrote: post #47
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Don't forget that Uber now requires you allow them to access your location, even when you aren't using their app [1]. Side note: consider the value to foreign (or domestic) intelligence agencies of this weakly-guarded pot of gold. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/30/13763714/uber-location-da...

Disclaimer: I work for Uber. However, my opinions are mine. I am also not defending nor attacking in any way Uber gathering location data. With that out of the way - you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? They have way better data than Uber ever will about all your habits, including establishing relationships based on who you call, which sites you visit, who you are signed up on a plan with, et…

"Your cell provider has that data, why can't we have it too?"

Oh dear

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#142

Post by smcl »

robrenaud wrote: post #44
dominotw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So, no, I'm not surprised that this company is doing other unethical things - it sort of seems interwoven into their DNA. Grubhub refused to delete my account even after pleading with them to do so many many times. To me seems like a general tech company trend not something specific to uber.

Is it legal to refuse to delete a users account?

I'm seeing a few replies suggesting that it varies between EU/US etc ... but either way it sounds like a REALLY effective way to piss off those customers and guarantee they'll never come back and use your service in future (or share such "horror" stories with their friends and relatives). I don't get why those companies would go out of their way to make things difficult for themselves in the long run

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#143

Post by warcode »

singlow wrote: post #113
bigmofo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you lose your credit card and you call your credit card company and them them that you lost it, they issue you a new card with new numbers; this way anybody that had the information on the card would not be able to make further transactions. I would consider the card lost when a company would not delete the credit card information on my request to delete the information.

A new number doesn't necessarily prevent charges from vendors who had the old one. For your convenience the banks actually allow new charges on the old cards after they are cancelled. I assume they whitelist vendors that have good reputations or filter based on patterns of charges against your account which you have not disputed. Verizon was able to charge against my old account for over a year. I kept getting snail…

If you report it as stolen and ask for it to be blocked that will stop all transactions on it.

If it expires or you get a new card in a normal flow it can be charged further.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#144

Post by hyperhopper »

> Reveal reports that Uber also changed the name of that tool [from "God View"] to "Heaven View."

What a useless change just for the sake of being politically correct. Are companies going to start removing "God Mode" from video games and calling it "super mode"? Seems crazy they would muck with naming to be PC even for internal tools

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#145

Post by bitwize »

hyperhopper wrote: post #144

> Reveal reports that Uber also changed the name of that tool [from "God View"] to "Heaven View." What a useless change just for the sake of being politically correct. Are companies going to start removing "God Mode" from video games and calling it "super mode"? Seems crazy they would muck with naming to be PC even for internal tools

How about "Degreelessness Mode"?

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#146

Post by toyg »

andygambles wrote: post #130
robrenaud wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it legal to refuse to delete a users account?

HMRC (UK Tax Office) requires us to keep transactional information for 6 years. Upon request we delete accounts but if they have transactional data this is still held in accordance with our legal requirements.

Transactional data surely does not have to include full card and address details though. That would contradict EU directives on sensitive data and privacy.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#147

Post by Nursie »

michaelvoz wrote: post #47
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Don't forget that Uber now requires you allow them to access your location, even when you aren't using their app [1]. Side note: consider the value to foreign (or domestic) intelligence agencies of this weakly-guarded pot of gold. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/30/13763714/uber-location-da...

Disclaimer: I work for Uber. However, my opinions are mine. I am also not defending nor attacking in any way Uber gathering location data. With that out of the way - you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? They have way better data than Uber ever will about all your habits, including establishing relationships based on who you call, which sites you visit, who you are signed up on a plan with, et…

You're the same guy who claimed a week or so back that "Uber is an ethical company", right?

--edit-- never mind, that turned out to be a different uber employee that posts here.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#148

Post by toyg »

paublyrne wrote: post #119
onion2k wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll agree with your point as soon as Uber signs up to the same level of regulatory restrictions as every phone carrier enjoys. The fact is that there are laws that strictly prohibit my phone carrier doing certain things with data about my usage. Case in point, the stalking that the article mentions - I don't think employees of my phone carrier can do the same thing. Technically they could because they have the neces…

That's a shame really, because I'm sure most of us would prefer companies weren't restricted by regulation and were just sensible and ethical by default, so laws weren't necessary. Interesting. I prefer regulation by default to be honest. Possibly shows my biases from growing up and living in Europe. I see regulation as something you should start with not something you should end up having to do. Just like I prefer c…

> I see regulation as something you should start with not something you should end up having to do.

That's the Platonic/Napoleonic mindset right there :)

It's one of the Great Philosophical Questions - do we build society from first principles, or do we just react to what people do as they get together? The latter is the current fashion, at least in theory - in practice, the former keeps coming up over and over, because lawmaking is fundamentally a prescriptive action that instinctively moves from first principles (and it's the only way that lawmakers can forever justify their role: if we ever figured out a society working so well that no reaction or correction is necessary, what would lawmakers do? Write law covering behaviour in places where humans could only potentially exist, i.e. prescribe from first principles).

TBH I rarely ever thought about this sort of thing until I moved to the UK, where the average mindset is deeply anti-Napoleonic/anti-Roman.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#149

Post by madeofpalk »

giovannibajo1 wrote: post #84
jc4p wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on this. I don't get why Apple can't mandate a "Only when in app" option. The description for why they require it says they use the location while in app or for a few minutes after the trip is over. When I was getting ready to leave for work today, I got out of the shower and grabbed my phone and saw a alert saying Uber has been using my location in the background. I hadn't opened the app since last week…

That popup is standard for any app that is approved to potentially use location in background and you don't use often. I think it's meant to discourage apps to ask location in background altogether

When they migrated to this style of permission it seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity to give the user the option of choosing "no, only when the app is open"

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#150

Post by cm2187 »

ranman wrote: post #124
singlow wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A new number doesn't necessarily prevent charges from vendors who had the old one. For your convenience the banks actually allow new charges on the old cards after they are cancelled. I assume they whitelist vendors that have good reputations or filter based on patterns of charges against your account which you have not disputed. Verizon was able to charge against my old account for over a year. I kept getting snail…

>In other cases, the bank will actually update the vendor with your new card number so that subscriptions are not interrupted. That's apparently a feature: https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-accoun...

Even if it is stolen? This thing is massively dangerous. It ensures your credit card details are stored all over the place for them to be leaked or stolen, with no way for the consumer to clean this up.
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