201–210 of 596 posts
Seems like a lot of people are confused/have questions about why Uber is being criminally investigated by the Department of Justice.* Here's why: 1. Uber is subject to the laws in the jurisdictions in which it operates. Evading authorities is textbook obstruction of justice. Not only did Uber build software that they used to evade authorities & break local laws in multiple states and countries, but they profited from…
Hi, what does USA stand for in this case?
Edit: Please don't down-vote this. Up-vote it and argue articulately against it! The only thing more embarrassing for authorities than having propped up a corrupt medallion taxi system for decades is this sort of probe. In order to disrupt the corrupt medallion system it took billions of dollars and algorithms to evade the officials who had been tasked by the corrupt medallion industry to leverage small compliance te…
Overall, I think that the good done by Uber around the world (primarily for consumer surplus, maybe not so much for drivers) totally dwarfs the various complaints I've heard about breaking local regulations. In practice, it takes an enormous amount of time and energy to roll back regulations in one jurisdiction (just look at the state of occupational licensing in various US states). In that environment, it takes someone with fairly thick skin to "just build the thing" and show consumers what they were missing. Personal failings aside, I think we owe Travis and the rest of Uber an enormous debt for showing us what's possible.
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That sounds as fake of a crime as money laundering. Certainly misleading officials that haven't identified as being on official business should not be a crime.
*as How is money laundering a "fake" crime?
Or perhaps it's simpler than that. I have a bunch of money in geographic location A, and I want to spend it in B, so I put it in a suitcase and walk/fly/drive on over.
Now LE comes along and says, gee whiz, our jobs are really hard having to catch criminals doing criminal stuff. You know, let's make it illegal to use your money as you like, to have any sort of privacy in your transactions. Tada, now they can just go after people for moving money around.
The sad thing is, they've won. They've made "money laundering" sound like something serious, instead of totally made up to make their jobs easy, and people seem to support such laws.
Maybe they'll call encryption "data laundering", "bit smuggling", "safety obstruction" or something catchy to get people against it.
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If the prosecutor is able to prove intent and you had committed some other crime as well then yes, you and your friend could potentially both be convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice. This isn't some kind of game; judges don't look favorably on defendants playing tricks.
That sounds as fake of a crime as money laundering. Certainly misleading officials that haven't identified as being on official business should not be a crime.
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> I'm not a fan of Uber, but it seems like it's their right to decide who is allowed to use their service. It's not their right to operate where they are prohibited, and it's also not their right to feed people believed to be enforcing that prohibition false information to prevent themselves from being busted for violating that prohibition.
We have a tool for this -- the government asks for a subpoena from a judge to force Uber to provide their data. It's all out in the open and Uber can argue against the subpoena if they choose. Scraping APIs with fake profiles isn't the right way to go about this.
If a law enforcement agency wants to catch child predators, it is entirely legitimate for them to make fake profiles of children and see who responds, and it's going to be a lot more productive than sending subpoenas to the creepiest-looking people in town saying "Are you a child predator Y/N".
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Yes, Uber does have the right to remove you from their service, for mostly any reason -- probably even because they think you're a "narc". But Greyball went way beyond that, and actively misled "suspicious" (probably sting agent) users into thinking cars would come, when they never did, wasting their time. That crosses over into interfering with an investigation -- the combination of "wasting someone's time" and "bec…
What if I think investigators are following me, so I get a friend to drive my car around all day, "wasting" their time. Am I now guilty of a crime? Seems like Uber did the same kinda thing.
If you put into action a plan that's intent is to mislead investigators that you believe are attempting to investigate you, then how do you claim that this can't be obstruction of justice? They are attempting to obstruct the investigation.
What you are doing to trying to evaluate the action separate from the intent, and claim that it's innocuous because there could be many explanations for the action.
Obviously at trial, the DoJ would be trying to prove intent, so trying to ignore it doesn't really make sense.
Edit: Please don't down-vote this. Up-vote it and argue articulately against it! The only thing more embarrassing for authorities than having propped up a corrupt medallion taxi system for decades is this sort of probe. In order to disrupt the corrupt medallion system it took billions of dollars and algorithms to evade the officials who had been tasked by the corrupt medallion industry to leverage small compliance te…
I don't think any of this is true (eg some cities have medallion systems, some don't; some are more & less corrupt). But for argument's sake, lets say all of it is true. So what? If Uber's big innovation was being able to order a car via an app, its neither that protectable or even all that innovative. Afterall Google was the 11st search engine. Given that each of Uber's rides is significantly subsidized by VCs, it r…
It is :)
> If Uber's big innovation was being able to order a car via an app
That's like saying that it would be trivial to set up a rival to the post office or a rival airline industry.
> its neither that protectable or even all that innovative
Correct, which is why the medallion industry had to get in bed with local politicians to protect itself. Once this was in place (the protection) innovation was irrelevant as anyone who has ridden in a medallion cab pre-Uber can attest.
> Given that each of Uber's rides is significantly subsidized by VCs, it remains unclear if such a service could ever be profitable.
Are you expressing doubt about whether people will need taxi style transit? I'd say it's one of the most proven business models in the world. The "subsidy" you mention allows Uber to grow more quickly than it otherwise would, but late stage investors are not stupid and would not pour money in if the economics were not sound.
I don't actually care whether Uber ends up profitable in the long term or not. I'm not an investor, though I am a happy customer. But I do want a fair fight, and the DOJ picking on Uber is a major misallocation of resources.
> Are you suggesting that no matter what Uber & its execs do, folks are supposed to be loyal to Uber
Not at all. I myself am not "loyal". A few months ago I made a post on HN in which I reached the conclusion that Travis probably ought to go. But making that argument does not mean I don't have tremendous respect for the company he built and the obstacles he overcame to make it happen. Travis is clearly an amazingly talented person who seems to have some blind spots as a manager. But let's not pretend someone like Eric Schmidt would ever start a company like Uber.
Seasoned, wise managers are relevant when a company has generally plateaued. This does not justify the harm caused by bad HR practices and poor judgment in dealing with the treatment of women at Uber, but let's not forget that one of the problematic hires (perhaps scapegoats) at Uber had come from Schmidt's google where he'd had many years of success but had not disclosed the disciplinary circumstances of his departure from Google.
> Uber disappeared, do you really think their competitors would suddenly stop using apps
This is farfetched, and not what I was arguing. My point is that Uber came up with a way to fight against one of the most entrenched industries in the world and win. This is generally what startups are supposed to do... create Schumpeterian growth which leaves a trail of destruction of the old edifices of power.
It may be that Uber simply won the first round of battles but that the war will eventually be won by the cronies and insiders who cozy up to local politicians and held the taxi industry hostage for so long. They have not given up easily. In some cities they are still strong and don't plan to go anywhere.
Before you decide to jump on the bandwagon against Uber, think about the many areas of life in which entrenched and backward systems oppress us and hold back progress. You are helping them drag us back into the darkness.
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> But hey, in Guatemala I've got no alternative and Uber works great and is far safer than a taxi, so hey... No local upstart competitors that are worth supporting?
Not that I've heard about. A local taxi company has an app that doesn't install properly and won't respond to emails about it. But they are running huge ads talking about how they're so "friendly" and "trusted". At the same time, the taxi drivers are threatening violence if the government doesn't boot Uber. Uber in Guatemala actually visits the drivers' houses, in addition to requiring police backgrounds on them and…
At first, it seemed like legitimate software to assess spam until: > For example, it mined credit card information to see if the owner was affiliated with a credit union used by police and checked social media profiles to assess the likelihood that the person was in law enforcement. Yikes. I know people who have the mentality that this sort of thing is ok. Whether you're a startup that never makes it, or one worth bi…
Switched to Lyft following the Susan Fowler blog post, haven't noticed any difference in service at all. Great replacement, at least in a major metro. Sometimes I'll chat with the drivers about what they prefer and most seem to like getting Lyft work more, but Uber has more demand.