Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rides of Glory – Uber Blog (2012)

web.archive.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 116 posts

Re: Rides of Glory – Uber Blog (2012)

#91

Post by maroonblazer »

striking wrote: post #89
mrzimmerman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that statistics have a moral imperative to be "decent" is as fascinating as it is ridiculous. Anonymized data is not a privacy breach, and Uber probably doesn't have any data that can help with "hunger, poverty, illiteracy, etc.". I'm sorry if the idea that "people's short overnight stays are evident in their travel data" makes you blush, but that isn't anyone else's problem.

I included the word "decent" because the way they used data goes beyond people's "overnight stays," they previously analyzed the spending patterns of people and tied it to welfare checks and prostitution. They immediately call it "one of the coolest things about working for a data-driven company like Uber" afterwards. It's bad data science, not only because it's only a correlation and not an experiment so nothing can…

>It's bad data science, not only because it's only a correlation and not an experiment so nothing can be proven, but because they use these unproven claims to say outlandish and unethical things.

I don't disagree that they've not scaled any sort of pinnacle in data science, but neither do I think what they're reporting is uninteresting.

In what way is what they're saying outlandish and unethical?

Re: Rides of Glory – Uber Blog (2012)

#92

Post by meowface »

potatolicious wrote: post #56
meowface wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, frankly this doesn't seem all that bad compared to some of the words coming out of executives' mouths. One could do an analysis like this while still working with anonymized data. Still a bit creepy, but not that different from reports and blog posts you see from other startups and tech companies.

Uber is suffering from a lack of credibility built up by by years of mild-to-moderate asshole behavior. Nothing they've done so far, in isolation, are IMO worth the pitchforks being handed out in tech and mainstream consciousness right now, but taken as a whole it's pretty easy to see why people aren't willing to cut Uber any slack or give them the benefit of the doubt. So yeah, this thing by itself isn't "that bad",…

Agreed.

Re: Rides of Glory – Uber Blog (2012)

#93

Post by meowface »

gtremper wrote: post #63
striking wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here (for me personally, at least) is that Uber is not in the business of selling dates/"encounters" and that people don't expect a ridesharing company to go right for the sexual data. Even OKCupid is straddling the line here with http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/we-experiment-on-human-bei... noting that: To test this, we took pairs of bad matches (actual 30% match) and told them they were exceptionally…

A little off-topic, but I don't see why OKCupid's actions here are unethical. Their matching algorithm isn't perfect, so they shouldn't treat it as an oracle of truth. How else would they discover false negatives in their algorithm? Especially since, in this case, a false negative is worse than a false positive (not meeting someone you'll like vs having one unsuccessful date).

People need to at least understand what's being done and they need to give consent before it happens. Otherwise, you're literally toying with people's lives. And in this case it's not in some insignificant way: you're manipulating their romantic and sexual endeavors.

It's actually far, far more invasive than what Uber did as they described it in the blog post.

Re: Rides of Glory – Uber Blog (2012)

#94

Post by yummyfajitas »

striking wrote: post #43
mmcclure wrote: post #26

I gotta say, I'm not really seeing the creepy / cringey / evil / whatever-else here... Anyone (especially the HN crowd) should know they have the data, and if you think they're not carefully analyzing it behind the scenes (like every other tech company who has your data), I've got things to sell you. I personally think a tiny peek like this into the data, much like the usage posts that OKCupid, YouPorn, and others gi…

The problem here (for me personally, at least) is that Uber is not in the business of selling dates/"encounters" and that people don't expect a ridesharing company to go right for the sexual data. Even OKCupid is straddling the line here with http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/we-experiment-on-human-bei... noting that: To test this, we took pairs of bad matches (actual 30% match) and told them they were exceptionally…

The uber post almost certainly did not violate anyone's privacy. They ran a bunch of aggregate queries that probably dropped any pii pretty early on. They did not publish a list of riders who took a ride of glory.

(I say they "probably dropped PII" because when you do work of this sort, PII is boring data that slows down your calculations.)

Similarly, what's wrong with observing a correlation between welfare checks and prostitution? It's an interesting observation. It's potentially useful for public policy and fighting poverty (at least American style relative poverty), though of course a more detailed investigation needs to be done.

Re: Rides of Glory – Uber Blog (2012)

#95

Post by viscanti »

wodenokoto wrote: post #57
mmcclure wrote: post #26

I gotta say, I'm not really seeing the creepy / cringey / evil / whatever-else here... Anyone (especially the HN crowd) should know they have the data, and if you think they're not carefully analyzing it behind the scenes (like every other tech company who has your data), I've got things to sell you. I personally think a tiny peek like this into the data, much like the usage posts that OKCupid, YouPorn, and others gi…

I think the problem is context. Had uber been a really fun company, we would laugh at insights into our very being. But since they are accused of trying to dig up dirt on people, this is a chilling reminder that they are more than capable of doing that, and apparently quite willing.

But this was from 2012, when Uber was a "fun" company. They were doing on-demand valentines and mariachi bands. It's in line with a small startup (which they were), and doesn't present any sensitive information.

Re: Rides of Glory – Uber Blog (2012)

#96

Post by wtbob »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #4
sergiotapia wrote: post #2

I can see why they deleted it, it's extremely cringey.

I think their post (also now deleted) inferring a connection between welfare checks and spikes in prostitution might have been even more cringey. https://web.archive.org/web/20140827195709/http://blog.uber.... Note that both of these posts had been up for years and only disappeared in the last few days.

Cringey, or true?

Re: Rides of Glory – Uber Blog (2012)

#97

Post by potatolicious »

wtbob wrote: post #96
waterlesscloud wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think their post (also now deleted) inferring a connection between welfare checks and spikes in prostitution might have been even more cringey. https://web.archive.org/web/20140827195709/http://blog.uber.... Note that both of these posts had been up for years and only disappeared in the last few days.

Cringey, or true?

It can be both, like the annoying coworker who won't shut up about how much sex he had over the weekend, or the guy who raves about his favorite scotch at an AA meeting.

A correct observation does not shield it from being inappropriate or in poor taste.

Re: Rides of Glory – Uber Blog (2012)

#98

Post by smokinjoe »

knowtheory wrote: post #83
mrzimmerman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that statistics have a moral imperative to be "decent" is as fascinating as it is ridiculous. Anonymized data is not a privacy breach, and Uber probably doesn't have any data that can help with "hunger, poverty, illiteracy, etc.". I'm sorry if the idea that "people's short overnight stays are evident in their travel data" makes you blush, but that isn't anyone else's problem.

The whole point is that it's not anonymized and it's being inspected for and used for purposes that have little to do with the ostensible customer-service agreement. People aren't used to transit companies interrogating them about the purposes of their journeys, they just want the transit company to get them from point A to point B (imagine if they did this when you got in the car: "Where are you going? Why?") And ob…

> But lets not kid ourselves. This isn't anonymized data. Uber's publishing in a format that is unspecific, but they have all of the detailed data and can poke through it and infer things at their leisure, and they have no compunction around how they're doing it or why.

That's a fairly large accusation to make.

This blog post was originally published in 2012 - two years ago. Since then has anything come out that would confirm your suspicions? I haven't seen anything.

Re: Rides of Glory – Uber Blog (2012)

#99

Post by chockablock »

Jach wrote: post #76
chockablock wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's possible that the name-to-gender mapping was done before the full ride data was handed over to this analyst. (Though just removing real names would still leave a lot to be desired in the anonymizing process). However there's no mention in these posts of such safeguards, and subjectively the post reads more like the analyst is just fishing around in the full raw dataset of ride times, start and end locati…

> Do you think that your average Uber rider would be OK with Uber employees analyzing their ride patterns (with their real names attached) to try to figure out where and when they are having sex? Sure, as long as Uber isn't broadcasting that information with their name attached. The average person really doesn't care about (or understand the extent of) data analysis (from companies or the government) -- what they car…

HIPAA's not a great example for you to use, since it does in fact limit access to protected information by employees (under a 'minimum necessary' standard) [0]. You can even serve time in federal prison for a violation without disclosing anything [1].

>People who want to control all their data are hoping for a fantasy world where observations and inferences by third parties are magically made impossible.

I think you are setting up a straw man here. What I suspect the average user expects is for their sensitive personal data to be dealt with in a professional and respectful way, with protections against abuse by rogue employees. There are plenty of companies who deal with private data and understand this well. Potatolicious had a comment on another Uber thread detailing the hoops an Amazon employee has to go through to get access private customer data [2].

Scrubbing these posts suggests that Uber realizes that they have a real problem, at least at the PR level. I wouldn't be surprised if they are also getting more serious about controls on internal access to ride data.

[0] http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/covereden...

[1] http://dailybruin.com/2010/05/05/former-ucla-medical-center-...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8624945

Post reply on HN