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Uber employee here. We were told the reason to track up to 5 mins after the trip is for fraud, ex if a driver doesn't end the trip when she is supposed to. and

Uber employee here. We were told the reason to track up to 5 mins after the trip is for fraud, ex if a driver doesn't end the trip when she is supposed to. and to figure out where the pick up spots for each address are. A large building may have multiple points where people get picked up or dropped off and knowing those points would be very useful for the drivers and riders. And just as a side note, take it with a few grains of salt but I know it's not easy to just trust a company with such personal information, and certainly I wouldn't either, but Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously. There are a lot of things we do for our customers that isn't reported by the news, but we always try to do the right thing. Ex. When we had a few outages earlier this year, we made sure that the drivers who were active at the time were "made whole" by paying them for the time we were down. Yes, there were issues a few years ago with statements and actions that were done, but the Uber today and the employees that work here now take a lot of pride in what they do. I would never have worked here if I didn't feel Uber was an ethical company. And neither would my coworkers. There are thousands of engineers now working here and we would be the first ones who would stand up to management if we felt that something nefarious or even careless was being done with user's personal information. Many of the company values revolve around "toe stepping" and "principled confrontation" and this means even against our own management. So I know it's not easy to believe, and it's easy for me to say since I work here, but nothing nefarious is going on. If there was, we the engineers would be against it completely.

dimino 10y ago
> but Uber as a company is very ethical You've got to understand how directly this clashes with the media coverage re: driver rights.
- employee8000 10y ago
  Yes and as an employee looking from the inside out, I see how negative the press is, and before I joined Uber I was biased by the media coverage as well. But everything I've seen on the inside directly goes against the media coverage I've seen. Take it with a grain of salt obviously.
  - temp 10y ago
    They might be ethical towards you. They're not ethical towards me, the person being driven, nor towards the Uber driver who's driving me.
  - plesner 10y ago
    I've seen first-hand uber employees doing things on behalf of the company that are even more unethical than what's being reported in the press.
    - SturgeonsLaw 10y ago
      Member when Uber hired teams to book and ditch rides with their competitors? Member when they hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on a plaintiff who was suing them? I member.
      - alekhkhanna 10y ago
        I member too ! Memberberries for President
  - rodgerd 10y ago
    Uber has hired drivers in my country who it turns out are medically unfit to hold a driver's license, while running ads claiming they do exhaustive background checks. That is not "the media". Your employer is totally unethical.
  - steveax 10y ago
    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” --Upton Sinclair
dav43 10y ago
A simpler option would be to get the customer to also swipe to end the ride (as an option). This way you get two sources for the end of the ride?
- rosstex 10y ago
  And what if the customer swipes early?
  - vuyani 10y ago
    thats an easy thing to validate. If the vehicle is still moving, or if the driver also hasnt confirmed the trip has ended you can work it out.
    - ryhamz 10y ago
      "easy" Proceeds to introduce multiple points of failure.
      - corin_ 10y ago
        Seems fairly easy: When the customer swipes to end, it notifies the driver. If the driver agrees, the ride ends there. If the driver doesn't agree, he tells the customer to undo the swipe or they will stop driving and the customer can get out.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - mltn 10y ago
      What if the customer gives her phone to a friend (through a car window) during the ride? Similar thing happened to me abroad. A couple of us used a single phone with a local card, so the phone exchanged hands frequently.
debt 10y ago
idk if i'd trust anything uber tells me if i worked there. same would go working at any sufficiently large org
- usrusr 10y ago
  "Large org", that's key here. Even a James Bond villain would require strict compliance of most of his underlings, maybe even more than average, except when not.
kbart 10y ago
"Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously." Probably every company has said that, yet we know how that usually turns out sooner rather than later (I'm looking at you, WhatsApp). "So I know it's not easy to believe, and it's easy for me to say since I work here, but nothing nefarious is going on. If there was, we the engineers would be against it completely." For now. What if a new higher manager comes and decides to use this information for other purposes (ad, sale etc.)? Some engineers might quit, but costumers can't take their data back. My takeaway is: do not trust companies with more data than necessary to provide you a service and this is exactly such case.
- AliAdams 10y ago
  I thought the drop-off points for large buildings could be a very reasonable justification for extending the tracking window for a few minutes on either side of the drive. I understand that this could fall into 'data necessary to provide a better service' as opposed to simply providing the service as-is, but it seems like drop-off point locations are quite fundamental.
  - kbart 10y ago
    Why do you imply that I go inside the building I asked Uber driver to stop by? Actually, most of the time I get out on the corner and walk to my destination (which address I did not provide to Uber), because of traffic restrictions in city center.
    - SeanDav 10y ago
      I am very anti-tracking, but to be fair IF Uber is being above board with their intentions, this is exactly the type of question they could answer.
  - mathw 10y ago
    I'm not sure how this data actually helps. I'll tell Uber where to pick me up, and where I want to go, and I can tell the driver exactly where to stop. Now, if this is to feed into their plans for autonomous taxis, that's all very well because I am really looking forward to being able to summon an autonomous electric car to take me wherever I want to go, but I still don't understand why they care about more than where I actually get out.
legulere 10y ago
> but Uber as a company is very ethical Even if you would believe Uber is an ethical company (there is good reason to believe for-profit companies generally are not and also good reason Uber especially is not), the underlying problem is that the data could fall into other hands. Three letter agencies can ask for that data, someone could leak the data, etc. I know the last one sounds unlikely but stuff like this happens all the time.
mfrommil 10y ago
Calling bs on "uber as a company is very ethical" and "nothing nefarious is going on": Spying on a journalist: http://www.businessinsider.com/ubers-new-york-manager-investigated-for-using-god-view-2014-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/ubers-new-york-manager-invest... Tracking celebrities and sharing publicly: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-uber-allegedly-stalked-users-for-party-goers-viewing-pleasure/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-...
- employee8000 10y ago
  Both articles from 2014. Uber 2014 and Uber 2016 are different companies, probably 5x the number of employees and has matured substantially especially with employee conduct expectations. I would be shocked and angry if something like that happened today.
  - zachrose 10y ago
    That's not how trust works.
  - abduhl 10y ago
    Have personnel changes happened at the highest levels of the organization since 2014? The abuse discussed in the links came down from the top ranks of Uber. When did you join Uber? If it was not prior to 2014, what makes you an expert on how the company had mature and, if prior to 2014, why were you not shocked and angry when these events occurred in 2014?
  - iamdave 10y ago
    Uber 2014 and Uber 2016 are different companies What are you basing this on and point me to supporting evidence of this, failing that I need something more convincing than increased headcount as a motivator to give Uber my trust as a consumer again.
  - yladiz 10y ago
    Really? A simple search found me an article from 2016 where a judge lambasted Uber's counsel about hiring a company who did unlicensed background investigation against someone who filed a lawsuit against Kalanick[1]. I've heard from you and multiple employees that you would be "shocked or angry" or believe "Uber is a good company and wouldn't have joined otherwise." But I find this hard to believe because if that was the case, then Uber would have lost most of their engineers in the beginning, pre-2014, when they were doing really shady stuff. Maybe you and your colleagues that use Hacker News that publicly commented on this thread would quit if something unethical happened, but words are empty while actions are not and I haven't heard of a case where a large group of Uber engineers or employees are protesting about their company's unethical nature. Color me unconvinced when I hear your words. http://fortune.com/2016/07/25/judge-uber-background-check-lawsuit-criminal/ http://fortune.com/2016/07/25/judge-uber-background-check-la...
r0m4n0 10y ago
I think if you have to explain yourself you have already lost. I always use Uber but uninstalled it 2 seconds after I discovered I couldn't change the location settings to my liking. Literally typing this from a Lyft haha
jaxondu 10y ago
If only need 5 mins after the trip, Uber is in strong position as large user to work with Apple on how to extend the existing background API to cover its use case.
chirau 10y ago
as a fun exercise... I am going to find out how many employees Uber has. From there, who knows. Lol. #username_might_check_out
newscracker 10y ago
> There are thousands of engineers now working here and we would be the first ones who would stand up to management if we felt that something nefarious or even careless was being done with user's personal information. How would you even know if "something nefarious or even careless was being done"? If there are thousands of employees, wouldn't it just be difficult for everyone to know what everyone else is working on, other "secret initiatives management has sponsored", etc.? There could be so many things happening right now where the information is "above your pay grade". My point is that even if the CEO or CTO or anyone else makes these statements, it's easy to be skeptical considering Uber's history and ethics. I know many companies that allow one to report issues much higher in the chain, have "no retaliation" policies, and so on, but it's really a stretch to ask employees to fully trust the system and worse, ask people outside the organization to trust the employees and the system.
- zaidf 10y ago
  My roommate works at Uber as an engineer. He has a pretty high moral bar and I'd bet there are enough like him at Uber that doing shady things systematically would get exposed to the outside world fairly quickly. Notice I said systematically because any company at scale with thousands of employees may have lonewolves doing shady stuff. But that is different than a company culture that endorses or encourages that. I haven't gotten any vibe that Uber does either and if it did, I'm pretty certain my friend and engineers like him would jump in a heartbeat.
  - EugeneOZ 10y ago
    You and your friend are just too naive. There always will be not so honest engineers and you will never know who exactly.
    - zaidf 10y ago
      That is not unique to Uber. It is a possibility for any company and for large companies, it introduces major risk of damage. This is why companies have controls in place. If you are arguing that the norms industry-wide should change, then I can understand. If you are saying any of this is unique to Uber and doesn't apply to Google or Apple etc., I would disagree.
davidgerard 10y ago
> Uber as a company is very ethical There are fairly substantial quantities of legal documentation that are evidence against this remarkable claim. They get covered here frequently.
akerro 10y ago
>trust a company with such personal information, and certainly I wouldn't either, but Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously. HAHAHAHAHA Nice try! > The ride-sharing company said that between July and December 2015, it had provided information on more than 12 million riders and drivers to various U.S. regulators and on 469 users to state and federal law agencies. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/uber-customer-data-privacy_us_570e518ae4b0ffa5937da329 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/uber-customer-data-priva... >the company's blog titled "Rides of Glory." The company examined its rider data, sorting it for anyone who took an Uber between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. on a Friday or Saturday night. Then it looked at how many of those same people took another ride about four to six hours later – from at or near the previous nights' drop-off point. (...) Uber has deleted the blog post http://www.marketplace.org/2014/11/18/business/final-note/ubers-data-makes-creepy-point-about-company http://www.marketplace.org/2014/11/18/business/final-note/ub... >Earlier this month Angie Bird woke up at her home in London to discover she had been billed for a series of minicab journeys she had allegedly made the previous evening … in the Mexican cities of Guadalajara and Aguascalientes, more than 5,500 miles away. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/apr/22/uber-scam-hacking-account-phantom-journeys https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/apr/22/uber-scam-hack... >Uber is using GPS to punish drivers in China who get too close to protests http://fusion.net/story/150389/uber-is-using-gps-to-punish-drivers-in-china-who-get-too-close-to-protests/ http://fusion.net/story/150389/uber-is-using-gps-to-punish-d... >Study: Uber and Lyft have ‘pattern of discrimination’ against black passengers. Waiting times for black Seattle passengers were 35% longer, and Boston drivers cancelled rides for black passengers more than twice as frequently, study found https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/31/uber-lyft-racial-discrimination-us-boston-seattle https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/31/uber-lyft... >According to internal Uber emails, the investigation began with a note from Uber’s general counsel, Sallie Yoo. The day that Schmidt filed the complaint against Kalanick, Yoo sent an email to Uber’s chief security officer, saying, "Could we find out a little more about this plaintiff?" The request was forwarded to the company’s head of Global Threat Intelligence, Mathew Henley. http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12127638/uber-ergo-investigation-lawsuit-fraud-travis-kalanick http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12127638/uber-ergo-investi... >Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously Please go with your bullshit somewhere else.
vmateixeira 10y ago
> but Uber as a company is very ethical If it wasn't for the apparent money laundry[1], drivers exploitation[2], cashing out on desperation[3], and tax evasion[4], maybe I could believe that. [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-loses-at-least-1-2-billion-in-first-half-of-2016 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-lose... (How can the company survive?) [1]https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/search?q=uber https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/search?q=uber (Closing and reopening with different names in the UK. Apparently 4? times so far... Hmm...) [2]http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/4/1523310/-UBER-s-Sharing-Economy-Is-A-New-Name-For-Exploiting-Workers http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/4/1523310/-UBER-s-Shari... [3]https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1805286/uber-accused-of-cashing-in-on-bomb-explosion-by-charging-almost-double-to-take-terrified-new-yorkers-home/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1805286/uber-accused-of-cashin... [4]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/20/uber-pays-low-uk-corporation-tax https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/20/uber-pays...
- pawadu 10y ago
  You forgot the best ones: using dirty tactics against journalists [1] and Lyft [2], I don't understand how anyone can with a straight face claim that "Uber as a company is very ethical company". I would rank the company management (not drivers) as ethical as the New York mafia. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/an-uber-exec-brought-up-the-idea-of-spying-on-journalists-2014-11?r=US&IR=T&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/an-uber-exec-brought-up-the-i... [2] http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-requests-lyft/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-re...
  - HeavyStorm 10y ago
    Very rare to have a company this size to be ethical.
    - karmacoda 10y ago
      Yes. These companies have teams of people spewing out a list of values for PR, and thinking that they have Jedi mind trick powers over the employees (on some people it actually works!). It's the company image, not how the company operates.
EugeneOZ 10y ago
Please send this message to management: "fuck off". Thank you.
Timshel 10y ago
> There are thousands of engineers now working here and we would be the first ones who would stand up to management if we felt that something nefarious or even careless was being done with user's personal information. Many of the company values revolve around "toe stepping" and "principled confrontation" and this means even against our own management. Then how come the "while using" option is not there ? the best way of not being careless with sensitive data is not having them in the first place.
svarrall 10y ago
Surely they can get the pick up points from the drivers data, can't they flag where the found the passenger? Why would they need it from the users side too?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
catwell 10y ago
This kind of fraud happened to me three days ago. I filed a complaint with Uber and they resolved the issue. I certainly think something should be done in the product to help with this, but there may be better options, including letting the user click a button to declare that the trip is over.
rmc 10y ago
Remember: If you're not in the USA, then US law doesn't protect your privacy! And US privacy law is nothing like EU privacy law. Has Uber considered reforming as a European company, under EU data protection law? That would a nice way to show that you take privacy very seriously.
- chris_wot 10y ago
  If Uber tries this in Australia, someone will file a complaint with our privacy commissioner and then Uber will be very, very sorry.
0xmohit 10y ago
A few things that speak a lot: - Algorithmic Labor and Information Asymmetries: A Case Study of Uber’s Drivers https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2686227 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2686227 - Uber: The Big Data Company http://www.forbes.com/sites/ronhirson/2015/03/23/uber-the-big-data-company/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ronhirson/2015/03/23/uber-the-bi... - How Uber is Selling all Your Ride Data http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/030916/how-uber-uses-its-data-bank.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/030916/how-ub... - How Uber Profits Even While Its Drivers Aren't Earning Money http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-uber-profits-even-while-its-drivers-arent-earning-money http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-uber-profits-even-while... - Uber claims US regulators collected data from 11m passengers https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/uber-us-regulators-data-passengers-report https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/uber-us-r...
NumberCruncher 10y ago
The problem is that you need only one employee without moral concerns but with the necessary data-access and the data you are collecting can be used to abuse your customers. At my former employer I had access to cell-phone usage data and for example I could have tracked the calls and geolocation of my girlfriend. Only becasue database grants were assigned automatically to everyone who required them. The only secure way of collecting data is not collecting data at all.
benevol 10y ago
> We were told the reason to track up to 5 mins after the trip is for fraud Yes, sure. There is always some sort of "reason" to "justify" mass surveillance. F that. It's just NOT acceptable. I'll never use Uber again.
redditmigrant 10y ago
Thanks for providing your perspective. Did anyone question the decision to remove the option of only allowing Uber to use location while using the app? That would have been a reasonable way to gather data but allow people uncomfortable with background tracking to opt-out.
icantdrive55 10y ago
Since Uber is so efficient, maybe you could pass on some information, I have been wondering about for years. 1. I want the the years, and makes of cars Uber demands for employment.(Not a list that changes with caffeine levels.) 2. I want a detailed report showing how much each independent contractor has made after expenses. These are not difficult questions. Uber must have more than a few Independant studies?
sriku 10y ago
While Uber may be interested in the "fraud" aspects - and I think that's a harsh word for what is "walk 50m from drop location" - it really ought to be up to the user to decide what the drop pin should be. Especially when it comes to uber-pool rides, riders may not want to disclose their residence or other locations to random passengers. The only thing that should matter is whether the rider got off at the dropped pin, and not whether the rider walks to some other place.
cabalamat 10y ago
> Uber as a company is very ethical Nice try, Travis Kalanick.
SixSigma 10y ago
> but Uber as a company is very ethical IPO, new management, all that data to sell. or (more likely) Bankruptcy, all that loss to recoup Ethics of today don't mean a thing.
madeofpalk 10y ago
> but Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously. Look I'm sure you believe that but there's many many many many data points that show that that's just not the case.
curried_haskell 10y ago
I'm sorry but Uber has broken the law in how many different cities, and you have the gall to call Uber "ethical"? Um, no. Uber is not ethical. Uber willfully breaks laws they don't like when they think they can get away with it. Why should I EVER trust Uber to obey the law or act ethnically towards me, when they already why as if laws are optional? Uber can get fucked.
- noarchy 10y ago
  Do you equate law with your society's ethics? Sometimes the two are well-aligned, I think, but not always. In a democratic society, they should be aligned, but the truth is, it isn't the rank-and-file of society making the laws.
rbcgerard 10y ago
So to paraphrase "I know we had problems in the past - but trust us, we're good guys!" Put your money where your mouth is - explicitly state in your terms of service specific safeguards of my data and large monetary rewards for a beach of those terms on your part...you never do anything bad with our data right? This should be easy...
uberaway987 10y ago
Ex-Uber employee here. Ethics and values were roughly 80% of the reason why I chose to walk away from what was ostensibly my dream job after only a few months. Being clear, my experience never saw misuse of customer info, just some legal but shady-as-shit ways they chose to do business. EDIT: Sorry, my point being that, while I don't anticipate they'll abuse customer location tracking in the large, I would vehemently dispute the parent poster's supposition that everyone at Uber is super ethical. Rank and file engineer? Yeah, probably fine. Management? I expect TK and his lieutenant bros and bro-ettes will do whatever he can get away with.
edkennedy 10y ago
Currently, I live in one of those large building complexes and have seen the related changes you bring up. The app has updated to show the different spots commonly used for pickup/drop off and I clicked on one of those instead of moving the pin every time like I used to.
omouse 10y ago
Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously. and at the same time plays dirty with city councils and hires a lot of lobbyists and slashes prices without advanced warning to drivers? all of those are unethical practices.
chris_wot 10y ago
That's nice you believe that, except for the fact that only a few years ago Uber tracked the location of a Buzzfeed journalist from God mode, and was accordingly fined for it.[1] In 2014, senior executive Emil Michael suggested using their service to dig up dirt on reporters.[2] They further tracked a Buzzfeed reporter when she was late to a meeting with one of their executives, without her permission.[3] The Uber data science team once used sensitive customer data to find a correlation between their ride data and prostituion, which was highlighted when it was quietly taken down.[4] Lest you think this was a one-off blog, then I refer you to the one entitled "Rides of Glory" [5] that tracked the one-night stands of their riders (you just can't make this shit up).[6] At Uber's Boston launch party they thought it would be hilarious to track 30 users in what they dubbed "Creepy Stalker View", and one executive, Chris Sims, was shown travelling around in a car - live - causing him to quit the service in outrage.[7] 1. https://www.google.com.au/amp/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/1/6/10726004/uber-god-mode-settlement-fine https://www.google.com.au/amp/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/... 2. https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/uber-executive-suggests-digging-up-dirt-on-journalists?utm_term=.qvQLAQaOmr#.rhpGL348mx https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/uber-executive-suggests-di... 3. https://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-investigating-its-top-new-york-executive-for-privacy?utm_term=.grxBeJOEG9#.ldzbm3rly2 https://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-investigating... 4. https://www.google.com.au/amp/venturebeat.com/2014/11/24/uber-removed-blog-post-from-data-science-team-that-examined-link-between-prostitution-and-rides/amp/ https://www.google.com.au/amp/venturebeat.com/2014/11/24/ube... 5. https://web.archive.org/web/20141118192805/http://blog.uber.com/ridesofglory https://web.archive.org/web/20141118192805/http://blog.uber.... 6. http://www.marketplace.org/2014/11/18/business/final-note/ubers-data-makes-creepy-point-about-company http://www.marketplace.org/2014/11/18/business/final-note/ub... 7. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-uber-allegedly-stalked-users-for-party-goers-viewing-pleasure/#5482352c3f84 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-...
bitskits 10y ago
There are several counterpoints to your opinion that Uber is a bastion of values and respect. Here are a few (excluding the many incidents involving drivers): 1. Your CEO refers to the impact of his company on his sex life as "Boober". https://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-most-awful-things-travis-kalanick-said-in-his-gq-profile/ https://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-m... 2. Uber orders and then cancels thousands of rides of its biggest competitor, Lyft. http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-requests-lyft/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-re... 3. Uber exec threatens a journalist Sarah Lacy with a smear campaign. https://pando.com/2016/05/04/npr-proves-once-again-uber-lying-and-trying-smear-journalists-when-caught/ https://pando.com/2016/05/04/npr-proves-once-again-uber-lyin... 4. God mode: Insiders tracked users personal movements and were fined 20k for misusing their access. http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10726004/uber-god-mode-settlement-fine http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10726004/uber-god-mode-sett... Your closing statement is spot on: it's not easy to believe "nothing nefarious is going on". For me, it's not even possible.
NurAzhar 10y ago
Can i email to dev for suggestions to eats@uber.com ?
newman314 10y ago
Then by all means, track the driver always but the passenger should have the option of "only while using"
decisiveness 10y ago
Unfortunately, "We were told the reason to track...is for fraud", does not make me very confident what you believe to be true is really true. And makes me even less confident considering your assertion that "nothing nefarious is going on. If there was, we the engineers would be against it completely." If your knowledge of what ultimately happens with the data relies merely on what you are told, how can it be possible for you to know nothing nefarious is going on? I was more hoping you'd try to answer the part that addressed the "While Using" option being removed. I'm guessing that one might also be too difficult to answer honestly in a public forum?

dimino 10y ago

> but Uber as a company is very ethical You've got to understand how directly this clashes with the media coverage re: driver rights.

employee8000 10y ago
Yes and as an employee looking from the inside out, I see how negative the press is, and before I joined Uber I was biased by the media coverage as well. But everything I've seen on the inside directly goes against the media coverage I've seen. Take it with a grain of salt obviously.
- temp 10y ago
  They might be ethical towards you. They're not ethical towards me, the person being driven, nor towards the Uber driver who's driving me.
- plesner 10y ago
  I've seen first-hand uber employees doing things on behalf of the company that are even more unethical than what's being reported in the press.
  - SturgeonsLaw 10y ago
    Member when Uber hired teams to book and ditch rides with their competitors? Member when they hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on a plaintiff who was suing them? I member.
    - alekhkhanna 10y ago
      I member too ! Memberberries for President
- rodgerd 10y ago
  Uber has hired drivers in my country who it turns out are medically unfit to hold a driver's license, while running ads claiming they do exhaustive background checks. That is not "the media". Your employer is totally unethical.
- steveax 10y ago
  “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” --Upton Sinclair

dav43 10y ago

A simpler option would be to get the customer to also swipe to end the ride (as an option). This way you get two sources for the end of the ride?

rosstex 10y ago
And what if the customer swipes early?
- vuyani 10y ago
  thats an easy thing to validate. If the vehicle is still moving, or if the driver also hasnt confirmed the trip has ended you can work it out.
  - ryhamz 10y ago
    "easy" Proceeds to introduce multiple points of failure.
    - corin_ 10y ago
      Seems fairly easy: When the customer swipes to end, it notifies the driver. If the driver agrees, the ride ends there. If the driver doesn't agree, he tells the customer to undo the swipe or they will stop driving and the customer can get out.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - mltn 10y ago
    What if the customer gives her phone to a friend (through a car window) during the ride? Similar thing happened to me abroad. A couple of us used a single phone with a local card, so the phone exchanged hands frequently.

debt 10y ago

idk if i'd trust anything uber tells me if i worked there. same would go working at any sufficiently large org

usrusr 10y ago
"Large org", that's key here. Even a James Bond villain would require strict compliance of most of his underlings, maybe even more than average, except when not.

kbart 10y ago

"Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously." Probably every company has said that, yet we know how that usually turns out sooner rather than later (I'm looking at you, WhatsApp). "So I know it's not easy to believe, and it's easy for me to say since I work here, but nothing nefarious is going on. If there was, we the engineers would be against it completely." For now. What if a new higher manager comes and decides to use this information for other purposes (ad, sale etc.)? Some engineers might quit, but costumers can't take their data back. My takeaway is: do not trust companies with more data than necessary to provide you a service and this is exactly such case.

AliAdams 10y ago
I thought the drop-off points for large buildings could be a very reasonable justification for extending the tracking window for a few minutes on either side of the drive. I understand that this could fall into 'data necessary to provide a better service' as opposed to simply providing the service as-is, but it seems like drop-off point locations are quite fundamental.
- kbart 10y ago
  Why do you imply that I go inside the building I asked Uber driver to stop by? Actually, most of the time I get out on the corner and walk to my destination (which address I did not provide to Uber), because of traffic restrictions in city center.
  - SeanDav 10y ago
    I am very anti-tracking, but to be fair IF Uber is being above board with their intentions, this is exactly the type of question they could answer.
- mathw 10y ago
  I'm not sure how this data actually helps. I'll tell Uber where to pick me up, and where I want to go, and I can tell the driver exactly where to stop. Now, if this is to feed into their plans for autonomous taxis, that's all very well because I am really looking forward to being able to summon an autonomous electric car to take me wherever I want to go, but I still don't understand why they care about more than where I actually get out.

legulere 10y ago

> but Uber as a company is very ethical Even if you would believe Uber is an ethical company (there is good reason to believe for-profit companies generally are not and also good reason Uber especially is not), the underlying problem is that the data could fall into other hands. Three letter agencies can ask for that data, someone could leak the data, etc. I know the last one sounds unlikely but stuff like this happens all the time.

mfrommil 10y ago

Calling bs on "uber as a company is very ethical" and "nothing nefarious is going on": Spying on a journalist: http://www.businessinsider.com/ubers-new-york-manager-investigated-for-using-god-view-2014-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/ubers-new-york-manager-invest... Tracking celebrities and sharing publicly: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-uber-allegedly-stalked-users-for-party-goers-viewing-pleasure/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-...

employee8000 10y ago
Both articles from 2014. Uber 2014 and Uber 2016 are different companies, probably 5x the number of employees and has matured substantially especially with employee conduct expectations. I would be shocked and angry if something like that happened today.
- zachrose 10y ago
  That's not how trust works.
- abduhl 10y ago
  Have personnel changes happened at the highest levels of the organization since 2014? The abuse discussed in the links came down from the top ranks of Uber. When did you join Uber? If it was not prior to 2014, what makes you an expert on how the company had mature and, if prior to 2014, why were you not shocked and angry when these events occurred in 2014?
- iamdave 10y ago
  Uber 2014 and Uber 2016 are different companies What are you basing this on and point me to supporting evidence of this, failing that I need something more convincing than increased headcount as a motivator to give Uber my trust as a consumer again.
- yladiz 10y ago
  Really? A simple search found me an article from 2016 where a judge lambasted Uber's counsel about hiring a company who did unlicensed background investigation against someone who filed a lawsuit against Kalanick[1]. I've heard from you and multiple employees that you would be "shocked or angry" or believe "Uber is a good company and wouldn't have joined otherwise." But I find this hard to believe because if that was the case, then Uber would have lost most of their engineers in the beginning, pre-2014, when they were doing really shady stuff. Maybe you and your colleagues that use Hacker News that publicly commented on this thread would quit if something unethical happened, but words are empty while actions are not and I haven't heard of a case where a large group of Uber engineers or employees are protesting about their company's unethical nature. Color me unconvinced when I hear your words. http://fortune.com/2016/07/25/judge-uber-background-check-lawsuit-criminal/ http://fortune.com/2016/07/25/judge-uber-background-check-la...

r0m4n0 10y ago

I think if you have to explain yourself you have already lost. I always use Uber but uninstalled it 2 seconds after I discovered I couldn't change the location settings to my liking. Literally typing this from a Lyft haha

jaxondu 10y ago

If only need 5 mins after the trip, Uber is in strong position as large user to work with Apple on how to extend the existing background API to cover its use case.

chirau 10y ago

as a fun exercise... I am going to find out how many employees Uber has. From there, who knows. Lol. #username_might_check_out

newscracker 10y ago

> There are thousands of engineers now working here and we would be the first ones who would stand up to management if we felt that something nefarious or even careless was being done with user's personal information. How would you even know if "something nefarious or even careless was being done"? If there are thousands of employees, wouldn't it just be difficult for everyone to know what everyone else is working on, other "secret initiatives management has sponsored", etc.? There could be so many things happening right now where the information is "above your pay grade". My point is that even if the CEO or CTO or anyone else makes these statements, it's easy to be skeptical considering Uber's history and ethics. I know many companies that allow one to report issues much higher in the chain, have "no retaliation" policies, and so on, but it's really a stretch to ask employees to fully trust the system and worse, ask people outside the organization to trust the employees and the system.

zaidf 10y ago
My roommate works at Uber as an engineer. He has a pretty high moral bar and I'd bet there are enough like him at Uber that doing shady things systematically would get exposed to the outside world fairly quickly. Notice I said systematically because any company at scale with thousands of employees may have lonewolves doing shady stuff. But that is different than a company culture that endorses or encourages that. I haven't gotten any vibe that Uber does either and if it did, I'm pretty certain my friend and engineers like him would jump in a heartbeat.
- EugeneOZ 10y ago
  You and your friend are just too naive. There always will be not so honest engineers and you will never know who exactly.
  - zaidf 10y ago
    That is not unique to Uber. It is a possibility for any company and for large companies, it introduces major risk of damage. This is why companies have controls in place. If you are arguing that the norms industry-wide should change, then I can understand. If you are saying any of this is unique to Uber and doesn't apply to Google or Apple etc., I would disagree.

davidgerard 10y ago

> Uber as a company is very ethical There are fairly substantial quantities of legal documentation that are evidence against this remarkable claim. They get covered here frequently.

akerro 10y ago

>trust a company with such personal information, and certainly I wouldn't either, but Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously. HAHAHAHAHA Nice try! > The ride-sharing company said that between July and December 2015, it had provided information on more than 12 million riders and drivers to various U.S. regulators and on 469 users to state and federal law agencies. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/uber-customer-data-privacy_us_570e518ae4b0ffa5937da329 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/uber-customer-data-priva... >the company's blog titled "Rides of Glory." The company examined its rider data, sorting it for anyone who took an Uber between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. on a Friday or Saturday night. Then it looked at how many of those same people took another ride about four to six hours later – from at or near the previous nights' drop-off point. (...) Uber has deleted the blog post http://www.marketplace.org/2014/11/18/business/final-note/ubers-data-makes-creepy-point-about-company http://www.marketplace.org/2014/11/18/business/final-note/ub... >Earlier this month Angie Bird woke up at her home in London to discover she had been billed for a series of minicab journeys she had allegedly made the previous evening … in the Mexican cities of Guadalajara and Aguascalientes, more than 5,500 miles away. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/apr/22/uber-scam-hacking-account-phantom-journeys https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/apr/22/uber-scam-hack... >Uber is using GPS to punish drivers in China who get too close to protests http://fusion.net/story/150389/uber-is-using-gps-to-punish-drivers-in-china-who-get-too-close-to-protests/ http://fusion.net/story/150389/uber-is-using-gps-to-punish-d... >Study: Uber and Lyft have ‘pattern of discrimination’ against black passengers. Waiting times for black Seattle passengers were 35% longer, and Boston drivers cancelled rides for black passengers more than twice as frequently, study found https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/31/uber-lyft-racial-discrimination-us-boston-seattle https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/31/uber-lyft... >According to internal Uber emails, the investigation began with a note from Uber’s general counsel, Sallie Yoo. The day that Schmidt filed the complaint against Kalanick, Yoo sent an email to Uber’s chief security officer, saying, "Could we find out a little more about this plaintiff?" The request was forwarded to the company’s head of Global Threat Intelligence, Mathew Henley. http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12127638/uber-ergo-investigation-lawsuit-fraud-travis-kalanick http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12127638/uber-ergo-investi... >Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously Please go with your bullshit somewhere else.

vmateixeira 10y ago

> but Uber as a company is very ethical If it wasn't for the apparent money laundry[1], drivers exploitation[2], cashing out on desperation[3], and tax evasion[4], maybe I could believe that. [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-loses-at-least-1-2-billion-in-first-half-of-2016 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-lose... (How can the company survive?) [1]https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/search?q=uber https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/search?q=uber (Closing and reopening with different names in the UK. Apparently 4? times so far... Hmm...) [2]http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/4/1523310/-UBER-s-Sharing-Economy-Is-A-New-Name-For-Exploiting-Workers http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/4/1523310/-UBER-s-Shari... [3]https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1805286/uber-accused-of-cashing-in-on-bomb-explosion-by-charging-almost-double-to-take-terrified-new-yorkers-home/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1805286/uber-accused-of-cashin... [4]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/20/uber-pays-low-uk-corporation-tax https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/20/uber-pays...

pawadu 10y ago
You forgot the best ones: using dirty tactics against journalists [1] and Lyft [2], I don't understand how anyone can with a straight face claim that "Uber as a company is very ethical company". I would rank the company management (not drivers) as ethical as the New York mafia. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/an-uber-exec-brought-up-the-idea-of-spying-on-journalists-2014-11?r=US&IR=T&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/an-uber-exec-brought-up-the-i... [2] http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-requests-lyft/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-re...
- HeavyStorm 10y ago
  Very rare to have a company this size to be ethical.
  - karmacoda 10y ago
    Yes. These companies have teams of people spewing out a list of values for PR, and thinking that they have Jedi mind trick powers over the employees (on some people it actually works!). It's the company image, not how the company operates.

EugeneOZ 10y ago

Please send this message to management: "fuck off". Thank you.

Timshel 10y ago

> There are thousands of engineers now working here and we would be the first ones who would stand up to management if we felt that something nefarious or even careless was being done with user's personal information. Many of the company values revolve around "toe stepping" and "principled confrontation" and this means even against our own management. Then how come the "while using" option is not there ? the best way of not being careless with sensitive data is not having them in the first place.

svarrall 10y ago

Surely they can get the pick up points from the drivers data, can't they flag where the found the passenger? Why would they need it from the users side too?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

catwell 10y ago

This kind of fraud happened to me three days ago. I filed a complaint with Uber and they resolved the issue. I certainly think something should be done in the product to help with this, but there may be better options, including letting the user click a button to declare that the trip is over.

rmc 10y ago

Remember: If you're not in the USA, then US law doesn't protect your privacy! And US privacy law is nothing like EU privacy law. Has Uber considered reforming as a European company, under EU data protection law? That would a nice way to show that you take privacy very seriously.

chris_wot 10y ago
If Uber tries this in Australia, someone will file a complaint with our privacy commissioner and then Uber will be very, very sorry.

0xmohit 10y ago

A few things that speak a lot: - Algorithmic Labor and Information Asymmetries: A Case Study of Uber’s Drivers https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2686227 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2686227 - Uber: The Big Data Company http://www.forbes.com/sites/ronhirson/2015/03/23/uber-the-big-data-company/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ronhirson/2015/03/23/uber-the-bi... - How Uber is Selling all Your Ride Data http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/030916/how-uber-uses-its-data-bank.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/030916/how-ub... - How Uber Profits Even While Its Drivers Aren't Earning Money http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-uber-profits-even-while-its-drivers-arent-earning-money http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-uber-profits-even-while... - Uber claims US regulators collected data from 11m passengers https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/uber-us-regulators-data-passengers-report https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/uber-us-r...

NumberCruncher 10y ago

The problem is that you need only one employee without moral concerns but with the necessary data-access and the data you are collecting can be used to abuse your customers. At my former employer I had access to cell-phone usage data and for example I could have tracked the calls and geolocation of my girlfriend. Only becasue database grants were assigned automatically to everyone who required them. The only secure way of collecting data is not collecting data at all.

benevol 10y ago

> We were told the reason to track up to 5 mins after the trip is for fraud Yes, sure. There is always some sort of "reason" to "justify" mass surveillance. F that. It's just NOT acceptable. I'll never use Uber again.

redditmigrant 10y ago

Thanks for providing your perspective. Did anyone question the decision to remove the option of only allowing Uber to use location while using the app? That would have been a reasonable way to gather data but allow people uncomfortable with background tracking to opt-out.

icantdrive55 10y ago

Since Uber is so efficient, maybe you could pass on some information, I have been wondering about for years. 1. I want the the years, and makes of cars Uber demands for employment.(Not a list that changes with caffeine levels.) 2. I want a detailed report showing how much each independent contractor has made after expenses. These are not difficult questions. Uber must have more than a few Independant studies?

sriku 10y ago

While Uber may be interested in the "fraud" aspects - and I think that's a harsh word for what is "walk 50m from drop location" - it really ought to be up to the user to decide what the drop pin should be. Especially when it comes to uber-pool rides, riders may not want to disclose their residence or other locations to random passengers. The only thing that should matter is whether the rider got off at the dropped pin, and not whether the rider walks to some other place.

cabalamat 10y ago

> Uber as a company is very ethical Nice try, Travis Kalanick.

SixSigma 10y ago

> but Uber as a company is very ethical IPO, new management, all that data to sell. or (more likely) Bankruptcy, all that loss to recoup Ethics of today don't mean a thing.

madeofpalk 10y ago

> but Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously. Look I'm sure you believe that but there's many many many many data points that show that that's just not the case.

curried_haskell 10y ago

I'm sorry but Uber has broken the law in how many different cities, and you have the gall to call Uber "ethical"? Um, no. Uber is not ethical. Uber willfully breaks laws they don't like when they think they can get away with it. Why should I EVER trust Uber to obey the law or act ethnically towards me, when they already why as if laws are optional? Uber can get fucked.

noarchy 10y ago
Do you equate law with your society's ethics? Sometimes the two are well-aligned, I think, but not always. In a democratic society, they should be aligned, but the truth is, it isn't the rank-and-file of society making the laws.

rbcgerard 10y ago

So to paraphrase "I know we had problems in the past - but trust us, we're good guys!" Put your money where your mouth is - explicitly state in your terms of service specific safeguards of my data and large monetary rewards for a beach of those terms on your part...you never do anything bad with our data right? This should be easy...

uberaway987 10y ago

Ex-Uber employee here. Ethics and values were roughly 80% of the reason why I chose to walk away from what was ostensibly my dream job after only a few months. Being clear, my experience never saw misuse of customer info, just some legal but shady-as-shit ways they chose to do business. EDIT: Sorry, my point being that, while I don't anticipate they'll abuse customer location tracking in the large, I would vehemently dispute the parent poster's supposition that everyone at Uber is super ethical. Rank and file engineer? Yeah, probably fine. Management? I expect TK and his lieutenant bros and bro-ettes will do whatever he can get away with.

edkennedy 10y ago

Currently, I live in one of those large building complexes and have seen the related changes you bring up. The app has updated to show the different spots commonly used for pickup/drop off and I clicked on one of those instead of moving the pin every time like I used to.

omouse 10y ago

Uber as a company is very ethical and takes the responsibility that we are entrusted with very seriously. and at the same time plays dirty with city councils and hires a lot of lobbyists and slashes prices without advanced warning to drivers? all of those are unethical practices.

chris_wot 10y ago

That's nice you believe that, except for the fact that only a few years ago Uber tracked the location of a Buzzfeed journalist from God mode, and was accordingly fined for it.[1] In 2014, senior executive Emil Michael suggested using their service to dig up dirt on reporters.[2] They further tracked a Buzzfeed reporter when she was late to a meeting with one of their executives, without her permission.[3] The Uber data science team once used sensitive customer data to find a correlation between their ride data and prostituion, which was highlighted when it was quietly taken down.[4] Lest you think this was a one-off blog, then I refer you to the one entitled "Rides of Glory" [5] that tracked the one-night stands of their riders (you just can't make this shit up).[6] At Uber's Boston launch party they thought it would be hilarious to track 30 users in what they dubbed "Creepy Stalker View", and one executive, Chris Sims, was shown travelling around in a car - live - causing him to quit the service in outrage.[7] 1. https://www.google.com.au/amp/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/1/6/10726004/uber-god-mode-settlement-fine https://www.google.com.au/amp/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/... 2. https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/uber-executive-suggests-digging-up-dirt-on-journalists?utm_term=.qvQLAQaOmr#.rhpGL348mx https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/uber-executive-suggests-di... 3. https://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-investigating-its-top-new-york-executive-for-privacy?utm_term=.grxBeJOEG9#.ldzbm3rly2 https://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-investigating... 4. https://www.google.com.au/amp/venturebeat.com/2014/11/24/uber-removed-blog-post-from-data-science-team-that-examined-link-between-prostitution-and-rides/amp/ https://www.google.com.au/amp/venturebeat.com/2014/11/24/ube... 5. https://web.archive.org/web/20141118192805/http://blog.uber.com/ridesofglory https://web.archive.org/web/20141118192805/http://blog.uber.... 6. http://www.marketplace.org/2014/11/18/business/final-note/ubers-data-makes-creepy-point-about-company http://www.marketplace.org/2014/11/18/business/final-note/ub... 7. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-uber-allegedly-stalked-users-for-party-goers-viewing-pleasure/#5482352c3f84 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-...

bitskits 10y ago

There are several counterpoints to your opinion that Uber is a bastion of values and respect. Here are a few (excluding the many incidents involving drivers): 1. Your CEO refers to the impact of his company on his sex life as "Boober". https://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-most-awful-things-travis-kalanick-said-in-his-gq-profile/ https://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-m... 2. Uber orders and then cancels thousands of rides of its biggest competitor, Lyft. http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-requests-lyft/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-re... 3. Uber exec threatens a journalist Sarah Lacy with a smear campaign. https://pando.com/2016/05/04/npr-proves-once-again-uber-lying-and-trying-smear-journalists-when-caught/ https://pando.com/2016/05/04/npr-proves-once-again-uber-lyin... 4. God mode: Insiders tracked users personal movements and were fined 20k for misusing their access. http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10726004/uber-god-mode-settlement-fine http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10726004/uber-god-mode-sett... Your closing statement is spot on: it's not easy to believe "nothing nefarious is going on". For me, it's not even possible.

NurAzhar 10y ago

Can i email to dev for suggestions to eats@uber.com ?

newman314 10y ago

Then by all means, track the driver always but the passenger should have the option of "only while using"

decisiveness 10y ago

Unfortunately, "We were told the reason to track...is for fraud", does not make me very confident what you believe to be true is really true. And makes me even less confident considering your assertion that "nothing nefarious is going on. If there was, we the engineers would be against it completely." If your knowledge of what ultimately happens with the data relies merely on what you are told, how can it be possible for you to know nothing nefarious is going on? I was more hoping you'd try to answer the part that addressed the "While Using" option being removed. I'm guessing that one might also be too difficult to answer honestly in a public forum?