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How Uber secretly investigated its legal foes and got caught
- PhantomGremlin 10y agoMy eyes lit up when I saw "Judge Rakoff"[1] mentioned in the article. He's not someone who suffers fools gladly. Uber better hope that they succeed in their motion to compel arbitration, otherwise things could get very "interesting" for them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jed_S._Rakoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jed_S._Rakoff
- wiredfool 10y agoDo not taunt super happy fun federal judge. It doesn't end well (see also: Prenda Law)
- vinceguidry 10y agoIs Uber really "one of the most powerful and litigious companies in the world"?? Journalists sure like their hyperbole.
- sverige 10y agoIs it hyperbole when a taxi company has someone with the title "Global Threat Intelligence"? I can picture Danny DeVito yelling at Judd Hirsch and Tony Danza now. "Find out about this lawyer!"
- CamperBob2 10y agoA company isn't paranoid if other companies really are out to get them.
- sundvor 10y ago"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you". Joseph Heller, Catch-22
- Spooky23 10y agoIt's funny how different the reaction is in forums like HN when you see a similar story focused on Walmart.
- meowface 10y agoThat's actually a pretty common title for any medium or big company. Companies that sell potato chips or windows also likely have something akin to a head of Global Threat Intelligence, sometimes with that exact title. It generally covers detecting and mitigating fraud, cybercrime, hacktivists, espionage, and rogue insiders. However, I don't think it's typical (or appropriate) that this person or their team would research lawsuit plaintiffs or conduct such an "offensive" action.
- madeofpalk 10y agoWhile that might not be the right choice of words, there definitely is some sort of legal force behind Uber - they operate a service that is basically illegal in a fair deal of cities around there world and manage to come out on top most of the time.
- argonaut 10y agoBeing incredibly popular with consumers and the public will do that for you.
- ceejayoz 10y agoStalking critics works, too. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/19/uber-investigates-top-executive-after-journalists-privacy-was-breached https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/19/uber-inve...
- chii 10y agoPiracy is incredible popular, and yet I can't see it being some sort of legal force...
- Rylinks 10y agoIt's hard to pay lawyers from the proceeds of piracy.
- intended 10y agoThus refuting the original point about it being about popularity. Simply put - using money to create legal power and abuse it in turn is how uber works. The fact that their service is popular just helps in PR - people will rationalize egregiously shady behavior instead of condemning it. As I see it the message from the article is "don't get caught". A sharp contrast from a few decades ago when "don't be evil" was considered a basic standard.
- xiaoma 10y ago
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- fiatjaf 10y agoAnti-trust? What a stupid thing. People who sue others based on violations of anti-trust laws are not people.
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- autokad 10y agosome people hate the idea of surge pricing, but it guarantees quality of service. it would be impossible to get enough drivers to satisfy demand
- CJefferson 10y agoI've never found it a serious problem in most cities. Sometimes I have to wait longer. The problem is with surge pricing, people can't choose to wait longer, than can only choose to pay an amount many people can't afford. That's what upsets people.
- autokad 10y agoyou sure can, just dont accept the ride and wait 20 minutes and try again. i imagine they dont give an option to reduce the price by giving them a specified extra time they would have to wait because models get complicated ... and a game between people choosing the 2nd option and drivers denying rides after the peek window erupts. uber has to have some sense of a guarantee the person can get the ride when uber says they will, so I too would shy away from an overly complicated model. its my opinion that people are not upset about having an option to wait longer, but are in fact upset they have to pay more for the ride when they want it. they think they are being price gouged for more proffit
- damienkatz 10y agoWhat? Of course they can wait longer. Wait until the surge is over.
- beedogs 10y agoOr just take a taxi. Uber will never get my money. They're a terrible company.
- majormajor 10y agoA lot of people would honestly prefer to wait in a line (seems fair on the face of it, everyone treated the same, first-come-first-serve) then wait a less-transparent amount of time due to people willing to pay more to (effectively) jump them in line. How do you think people would react to grocery stores saying "oh, the checkout lines are long right now, everyone gets hit with an extra 20%!" The underlying mechanics are different, but that's kinda the customer experience it gives off.
- __a__ 10y agoWhat is the real value proposition of Uber? The software? Why didn't they just license the software to taxi companies? What do HN readers think?
- dmix 10y agoThis is the result of what happens when you have a massive intelligence community and workers decide to go into private industry. "Threat intelligence" has always been a bit shady and of questionable security value. CEOs just like to get handed an "intelligence portfolio" to feel big and powerful, regardless if it practically improves their security.
- duncan_bayne 10y agoSo someone doesn't like surge pricing and decides to wield the heaviest stick they can (the State) against Uber, via antitrust (legislation which shouldn't exist in a free country). Then he has the gall to complain that the company he's trying to sue investigates him in an aggressive and possibly illegal manner. I don't see there's a good guy here. AFAICT, both he and Uber are behaving in a fairly contemptible fashion. For those here who support antitrust legislation (even in cases other than this one), this is worthwhile reading: https://mises.org/library/antitrust-case-repeal https://mises.org/library/antitrust-case-repeal "Professor Armentano begins with the most rigorous and revealing account of the Microsoft antitrust battle to appear in print. He further discusses other recent cases, including Toys `R' Us, Staples, and Intel, as well as many historical cases. He covers nearly every conceivable rationale for antitrust, including price fixing, tie ins, vertical and horizontal mergers, and many more." It's a bit old, but still highly relevant.
- chrischen 10y agoUber sure gets a lot of bad press, but if the movie Wolf on Wall Street is any indicator, there's no such thing as bad press (unless you're Theranos). The press seems to be helping Uber a lot in name recognition. It's becoming the Kleenex of on-demand car services.
- jessaustin 10y agoOne wouldn't have thought to describe the problem at Theranos as "bad press".
- Animats 10y agoThis is backfiring for Uber the way having Ralph Nader followed did for General Motors back in 1966.[1] [1] http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph-nader1965-1971/ http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph-nader1965-1971...
- ams6110 10y agoStrikes me as being very in line with Uber's overall outlook. They think that laws and regulations don't apply to them.
- pfarnsworth 10y agoTLDR: "In a filing last night, Uber pushed back against the allegations of fraud, arguing its contract with Ergo had specified that the investigation be both lawful and professional, and neither Kalanick nor Uber had any idea an investigator might stray beyond that. "Uber took reasonable steps to ensure that Ergo complied with the law," the filing reads. "It is undisputed that Uber and Mr. Kalanick were unaware that Ergo would use misrepresentations during its investigation."" According to the article, it's common to do due diligence on plaintiffs, especially when they do something weird like name the CEO personally in the lawsuit. But it's obvious the research firm Uber contracted did more than they asked.
- peterbonney 10y agoAlternatively... TLDR: 'Uber communicated with Ergo largely over encrypted channels. Henley [the Uber executive that hired Ergo] explained in one email that this was necessary to "avoid potential discovery issues."' Any reasonable person with knowledge of litigation knows that the only reason you attempt to hide things from discovery is that they are incriminating, aggravating (in the legal sense) and/or damning. "Common" due diligence on plaintiffs would never need to be hidden from discovery. In fact, quite the opposite: negative information turned up in due diligence would be paraded in front of the opposing side as a negotiating tactic, and you (almost always) can't selectively disclose which information you turn over in discovery. Furthermore, if you intend information to remain confidential in litigation, you have your attorney do it so it can be classified as privileged attorney-client work product. But the inconvenient limitation is that lawyers are bound by legal ethics, so the fact that this investigation wasn't conducted by the firm's attorneys (and was, apparently, hidden from them) suggests it was known to cross ethical lines. And naming CEO's in lawsuits isn't "weird" - it's an extremely vanilla legal tactic. You name anyone and everyone and let the opposing counsel argue for more limited scope. Leaning on that as an excuse is transparently absurd. It's obvious to any reasonable third party that Uber intended to go beyond normal legal due diligence, and got caught.
- mcherm 10y agoYou write: > Any reasonable person with knowledge of litigation knows that the only reason you attempt to hide things from discovery is that they are incriminating, aggravating (in the legal sense) and/or damning. I disagree with that. As a general rule of thumb, "only people who have done something wrong would care about privacy" is a frequently used truism which is actually quite false. In this particular case, reasonable people with knowledge of litigation know that there are many, many reasons to hide things from discovery. The most common is because "the lawyers haven't reviewed this and so we don't know whether it would be problematic or not -- 99% chance it isn't a problem, but we shouldn't take any chances". This is the main reason (at least in the US) why companies have data destruction policies that require all emails and documents past a certain age be automatically deleted (unless an explicit step is taken to retain them).
- fencepost 10y agoI'm frankly astonished at how bad Uber is at setting an image - or if they're not bad at it then they're terrible at deciding what image to set. I've never used them* but based on their reputation and depending on circumstances I think my preference order would be Lyft, taxi, public transportation, livery service, call friends to ask a favor, Uber, walk - and "walk" might move up the list depending on the weather and distance. * The one time I tried to actually use Uber they locked my account because the card on file was declined - it'd been replaced after the Home Depot breach. Their unlock policy appeared to be something like "send us a picture of the card," which wasn't going to happen since it had been shredded months before. The early press about their business practices had already started, so I wasn't that interested in pursuing unlocking either.
- fennecfoxen 10y ago> I've never used them I have, I continue to use them (anyone has better service and is less corrupt than the taxi cartels), and I still generally agree.
- uola 10y agoI don't really get the "taxi cartel" thing. Taxis aren't exactly brilliant everywhere so I buy the better service argument, but if you're concerned about corruption and cartels I don't see how a global company largely operating outside the law is better.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoIt is more about a better deal and/or not getting ripped off (which the cartel is against) than about it being a cartel. It is amazing what Uber can do in a city like Manila. Taxis also never bothered upping their convenience game, because they thought they didn't have to.
- akshatpradhan 10y agoIts about not getting ripped off. With Lyft/Uber you can escalate if you feel ripped off. With Taxi Cartel's, there's nobody to take your complaints. We feel ripped off whenever we've had to ask this of ourselves, "Gosh, we seem to have gone a longer route" or "Did he start the meter before I got into the car?" Side story: In Baltimore this happened to me. I got into a taxi and the driver starts asking me tons of questions. I'm politely answering and having conversation but I'm clearly not paying attention to the meter. We drove for 7-10 mins, 2-3 miles or so, and upon arriving to my destination is when I realized the cost was $30.
- cm2187 10y agoI have mixed feelings about Uber. On one side it takes a thick skin to go against the various taxi cartels (some of which are close to an organised mafia, like in Paris, where taxi drivers will not hesitate to physically assault competitors). And they do provide a better service. On the other side I am not keen to see a mafia replaced by another mafia. There has been multiple stories about Uber bullying competitors. And this. And Uber also seems to be very much minded to milk the customer to the last penny. Introduction of peak pricing, Uber charging a cancellation fee when the driver cancels the ride, etc.
- joering2 10y agoNo shady tactics will surprise me when it comes to Uber. I still receive spammy emails they continue to send. And Sendgrid is fully in bed with them. Forwarded spam to Sendgrid and they said they will follow up with Uber (so apparently they are Uber's customer support at this point - great!) The spamming practice never changed or stopped despite Sendgrid telling me they will send my email to them (!!) to unsubscribe me from their list, when I didn't even subscribe in the first place. As I received more Uber spam I kept updating Sendgrid ticked (zendesk). Eventually some 2 weeks later they closed it as "resolved" and never replied to my emails again. I still get Uber Spam from Sendgrid. Stay away from that piece of shit as long as you can!! (both Uber and Sendgrid) PS. As of Uber, I copied all my emails and forwarded them to FCC. In short telephone conversation I was told I'm not the only one and as they have reached over 1,000 complaints in short period of time, they will be investigating both into Uber practices and also Sendgrid as an accomplice to their alleged crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003
- michaelt 10y agoI've experienced the same thing. As far as I can tell, Uber's policy is when you sign up you don't have to opt in and don't get to opt out of their marketing mailing list, and when you close your account you don't get removed either, because fuck you.
- joering2 10y agoI just got personal email from someone at Uber. They explained to me that they comply with Can Spam by... providing unsubscribe link. Nothing mentioned how I got on their list in the first place, on what their practice are. Clearly my email must have been scrapped from public sites, since I never did sign with them in the first place. So yeah if they don't even know the rules of Can Spam, how the heck you expect them to follow the law? I will have a short call with Attorney General in my State end of this week to see if I am a separate incident.
- peterbonney 10y agoOne issue unexplored in the article: was Uber under a document preservation order related to the litigation when it (allegedly) used Wickr to communicate with Ergo about the investigation? If so... I don't think the court will take kindly to either "the chat app ate my homework" or "no really, we agreed to us Wickr and exchanged screen names, and then stopped emailing, but I swear we never actually used it" as defenses.