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How diabolical! In a world where privacy has been traded away for convenience, it's poetic justice where a startup uses data mining techniques to subvert the g

How diabolical! In a world where privacy has been traded away for convenience, it's poetic justice where a startup uses data mining techniques to subvert the government. This is the same government that would have no issues to use the same techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives. I'm neither on Uber nor the government's side in this case, just simply making an observation. The lack of data privacy seems to be a double-edged sword for users and government/law enforcement alike.

zymhan 10y ago
Yeah, while I'm outraged that Uber would go to such lengths to deceive the government, and by extension the people, there's certainly a bit of schadenfreude here.
- eddieplan9 10y ago
  Deceiving the government does not necessarily extend to deceiving the people. It depends on whether the government represents people's interest in the case. In the Portland's case in particularly, it's absolutely certain the the government was not siding with the interest of the majority of the people. Similarly, if someone is protesting drone strike, it does not mean he is protesting against the US people.
  - zymhan 10y ago
    While the majority of people would surely like to have a cheaper, faster, easier taxi service available, that doesn't mean that Uber should be allowed to operate regardless of the municipality's laws. A city is a democracy, and Uber could certainly lead a campaign to convince citizens to get their political leaders to allow Uber to operate. There are plenty of ways to affect change that aren't just flouting the law.
maldusiecle 10y ago
My perspective is the opposite. In a world where large multinationals have the power to evade the law in a deliberate and systematic way like this, it's easy for governments to claim they need the same kind of power. Things like this are exactly what bureaucrats point to when they make their arguments for a surveillance state. I don't like the US government much, but I like it a lot better than the average multinational. When it comes down to it, we don't have more than our choice of devils.
- oculusthrift 10y ago
  i agree with your point about multinationals but this case is more interesting than that. Uber isn't Coca Cola. They essentially used tactics like this to go from plucky underdog to multinational.
  - quirkot 10y ago
    Uber was always too shady to be justifiably plucky
    - snappyTertle 10y ago
      Uber was justifiably shady. They had to get around outdated laws that protects an outdated medium of transportation.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        No, they simply went around laws that governed their market in order to outcompete other providers, and they are pretty smug about it. They never discriminated between laws that are obviously obsolete and laws that are still important.
        snappyTertle 10y ago
        Which laws were important?
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        Insurance laws and employee laws, for starters. And even medallion laws in some places, because they offset the costs cabs incur for being a part of city transportation infrastructure - costs like adapting cars to service elderly and disabled.
      - wfo 10y ago
        There are a lot of reasons people think Uber is shady beyond just their lawbreaking. Their CEO, their abusive and toxic mysoginist work culture, etc.
PunchTornado 10y ago
In care of companies we can change things very easy. Just stop using them.
PunchTornado 10y ago
In care of companies we can change things very easy. Just stop using them.
vkou 10y ago
Yes, because you can totally make a moral equivalence between the NSA, and the bylaw enforcement office of the City of Calgary. This is like drawing a moral equivalence between an abusive sweatshop and every company in the world. Smash the system, and overthrow the bourgeois!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
alphonsegaston 10y ago
This is an absurd false equivalency. The NSA isn't tracking down drivers, this is local law enforcement. They could be investigating a crime related to an Uber driver, but not specifically about the legality of the service. What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down?
- valine 10y ago
  > What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down? You can't use the app to track anyone down. Driver reviews of passengers and passenger reviews of drivers are annoynomous for this reason. If a cop is trying to track an uber driver they would be much better off getting the license plate from the passenger and running that through their system. Trying to randomly hail rides through the app in hopes that the abusive driver would happens to respond sounds like a waste of time when there are better alternatives.
  - alphonsegaston 10y ago
    Yeah, but you could also use it to see where cars are in the area and track them down from there? Except if you're a cop they flagged and they send you bullshit noise on purpose. I guess that's fine, right?
    - redbergy 10y ago
      Yes, it is fine. Uber is a private company and its data is private. It's an interesting thought experiment but I just can't get behind the idea that a private company has a moral or ethical responsibility to ensure that data they're providing to the public via their own app doesn't mislead law enforcement. If there was a court order for the data and it was inaccurate or false that's one thing but this is completely different.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > They could be investigating a crime related to an Uber driver In fact, that's what they were investigating. Violating any law is a crime.
andmarios 10y ago
Only if by startup you mean a company that rich investors showered with tens of billions of dollars.
csours 10y ago
The difference is that the government gets REALLY pissed when you use their playbook, and they can do something about it.
guelo 10y ago
The Portland city government is not "the same government" that runs the FBI and NSA.
adamsea 10y ago
The article describes deliberate behavior by Uber to circumvent the law of the land. You might not like the law, but if you believe in the principle of rule of law, then, you should not be OK with this. Otherwise, there's no reason for other companies to, say, pollute the water supply, dump smog into the air, deliver dangerously unsafe foodstuffs or products to consumers, i.e., break the law.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  This is a dichotomy I reject. Laws should be evaluated on an individual basis, not as a body, otherwise you're logically obligated to be as bothered at people going 51 in a 50 as rape and murder. On top of that, many laws are bogus, pointless, useless, more are actively harmful. Hell, Uber got a start by flaunting a law that had little actual use in the real world save for protecting monopolists with very flimsy pretenses. You probably flaunt the speed limit on a daily basis commuting to work because the alternative is less safe and less efficient for all concerned. Let's not pretend that ignoring useless laws is a slight against some broader philosophical concept.
  - leephillips 10y ago
    "Uber got a start by flaunting a law" "You probably flaunt the speed limit" Probably not what you intended to say. More substantially, I think the licensing regulations for taxis (that's what you have in mind, no?) are far from obviously of "little actual use". This would vary greatly by region; I understand that London and Tokyo, for example, require taxi drivers to prove familiarity with their city's layout before being allowed to take passengers. Maybe this is to enforce a monopoly, or maybe it's for the benefit of the public. It's at least debatable.
    - Karunamon 10y ago
      Right, but the fact that it's debatable at all means that you don't automatically get to automatically classify breaking a law as a moral evil.
anigbrowl 10y ago
This is the same government that would have no issues to use the same techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives. Local government is not the same as the NSA. Quit with these fallacies of composition.
- CompanionCuube 10y ago
  Ever heard of a Stingray? https://www.aclu.org/map/stingray-tracking-devices-whos-got-them https://www.aclu.org/map/stingray-tracking-devices-whos-got-...
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Of course, but it's inaccurate to attribute identical behavior to all local governments as if they were part of a single hierarchy.
    - CompanionCuube 10y ago
      The behavior is attributed by the ACLU to locales mentioned in the NYT article such as MA and NV. "Uber used these methods to evade the authorities in cities such as Boston, Paris and Las Vegas"
snappyTertle 10y ago
I think the better question is: Does the law that Uber is subverting make sense in the first place?
- a3n 10y ago
  And a better question than that is: should a corporation be picking and choosing which laws they follow and which they don't?
  - snappyTertle 10y ago
    And an even better question: Would we need to ask ourselves these questions if these nonsense laws didn't exist?
    - ubernostrum 10y ago
      Of course not. If we got rid of all these laws the corporations would simply enforce terms of service on us, containing whatever they want. And then would argue that we freely entered into those terms of our own free will by being born where we were and when we were!
      - ycmbntrthrwaway 10y ago
        > And then would argue that we freely entered into those terms of our own free will by being born where we were and when we were! You just described what the government does.
        a3n 10y ago
        Except the government's "TOS" are constrained by the Constitution. No such constraint on corporate TOS, particularly in the thought experiment where all laws are gone.
      - snappyTertle 10y ago
        How would they enforce these evil TOS? They don't have the power to do so.
huffmsa 10y ago
The governments of the world wish they could be this efficient at leveraging techniques like this on their people.
grandalf 10y ago
I totally agree with this. One thing that should be noted is that in this case the government was acting in the corrupt interest of the incumbent taxi industry. Once the system has been corrupted, tactics like Grayball become the only way for any company to disrupt the industry. My guess is that Grayball was used most in jurisdictions with the most corruption and regulatory capture inflicted by the taxi/livery industry.
brightball 10y ago
I'm a little split on this... I personally couldn't imagine ever doing something like this...but on the other hand Uber has clearly demonstrated demand for their service that's been fought at every corner with entrenched interests that have government connections, alluded to in the article. I'm not endorsing it...but I can understand what would drive them to do it. Uber's playing dirty ball that's all about winning at all costs. The problem is that their opposition, for the most part...is ALSO playing dirty ball.
ycmbntrthrwaway 10y ago
I'm totally on Uber side here. Both Uber users and drivers use the service voluntarily. It may discriminate, be unsafe, whatever, but I just ride a bus and don't care. When government tries to interfere with voluntary exchange, it is OK to circumvent it. See what HN says when government tries to prevent you from using certain websites or services (Signal messenger, just for example). We call it censorship, use VPNs and circumvent government regulations all the ways possible. Service providers hide behind CDNs and use domain fronting to increase collateral damage, move to liberal countries and things like that. It is the same case here.
- MarkMc 10y ago
  You don't care about discrimination? So it's OK for a restaurant or landlord or private college to post a sign saying, "Whites Only"?
TeMPOraL 10y ago
So far, at least in the West, it's mostly private companies that form the "surveillance state" and that use collected data to fuck with people.
cgearhart 10y ago
And in both cases, it's _people_ who wind up with the short end of the deal.

zymhan 10y ago

Yeah, while I'm outraged that Uber would go to such lengths to deceive the government, and by extension the people, there's certainly a bit of schadenfreude here.

eddieplan9 10y ago
Deceiving the government does not necessarily extend to deceiving the people. It depends on whether the government represents people's interest in the case. In the Portland's case in particularly, it's absolutely certain the the government was not siding with the interest of the majority of the people. Similarly, if someone is protesting drone strike, it does not mean he is protesting against the US people.
- zymhan 10y ago
  While the majority of people would surely like to have a cheaper, faster, easier taxi service available, that doesn't mean that Uber should be allowed to operate regardless of the municipality's laws. A city is a democracy, and Uber could certainly lead a campaign to convince citizens to get their political leaders to allow Uber to operate. There are plenty of ways to affect change that aren't just flouting the law.

maldusiecle 10y ago

My perspective is the opposite. In a world where large multinationals have the power to evade the law in a deliberate and systematic way like this, it's easy for governments to claim they need the same kind of power. Things like this are exactly what bureaucrats point to when they make their arguments for a surveillance state. I don't like the US government much, but I like it a lot better than the average multinational. When it comes down to it, we don't have more than our choice of devils.

oculusthrift 10y ago
i agree with your point about multinationals but this case is more interesting than that. Uber isn't Coca Cola. They essentially used tactics like this to go from plucky underdog to multinational.
- quirkot 10y ago
  Uber was always too shady to be justifiably plucky
  - snappyTertle 10y ago
    Uber was justifiably shady. They had to get around outdated laws that protects an outdated medium of transportation.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      No, they simply went around laws that governed their market in order to outcompete other providers, and they are pretty smug about it. They never discriminated between laws that are obviously obsolete and laws that are still important.
      - snappyTertle 10y ago
        Which laws were important?
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        Insurance laws and employee laws, for starters. And even medallion laws in some places, because they offset the costs cabs incur for being a part of city transportation infrastructure - costs like adapting cars to service elderly and disabled.
    - wfo 10y ago
      There are a lot of reasons people think Uber is shady beyond just their lawbreaking. Their CEO, their abusive and toxic mysoginist work culture, etc.

PunchTornado 10y ago

In care of companies we can change things very easy. Just stop using them.

PunchTornado 10y ago

In care of companies we can change things very easy. Just stop using them.

vkou 10y ago

Yes, because you can totally make a moral equivalence between the NSA, and the bylaw enforcement office of the City of Calgary. This is like drawing a moral equivalence between an abusive sweatshop and every company in the world. Smash the system, and overthrow the bourgeois!

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

alphonsegaston 10y ago

This is an absurd false equivalency. The NSA isn't tracking down drivers, this is local law enforcement. They could be investigating a crime related to an Uber driver, but not specifically about the legality of the service. What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down?

valine 10y ago
> What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down? You can't use the app to track anyone down. Driver reviews of passengers and passenger reviews of drivers are annoynomous for this reason. If a cop is trying to track an uber driver they would be much better off getting the license plate from the passenger and running that through their system. Trying to randomly hail rides through the app in hopes that the abusive driver would happens to respond sounds like a waste of time when there are better alternatives.
- alphonsegaston 10y ago
  Yeah, but you could also use it to see where cars are in the area and track them down from there? Except if you're a cop they flagged and they send you bullshit noise on purpose. I guess that's fine, right?
  - redbergy 10y ago
    Yes, it is fine. Uber is a private company and its data is private. It's an interesting thought experiment but I just can't get behind the idea that a private company has a moral or ethical responsibility to ensure that data they're providing to the public via their own app doesn't mislead law enforcement. If there was a court order for the data and it was inaccurate or false that's one thing but this is completely different.
hackuser 10y ago
> They could be investigating a crime related to an Uber driver In fact, that's what they were investigating. Violating any law is a crime.

andmarios 10y ago

Only if by startup you mean a company that rich investors showered with tens of billions of dollars.

csours 10y ago

The difference is that the government gets REALLY pissed when you use their playbook, and they can do something about it.

guelo 10y ago

The Portland city government is not "the same government" that runs the FBI and NSA.

adamsea 10y ago

The article describes deliberate behavior by Uber to circumvent the law of the land. You might not like the law, but if you believe in the principle of rule of law, then, you should not be OK with this. Otherwise, there's no reason for other companies to, say, pollute the water supply, dump smog into the air, deliver dangerously unsafe foodstuffs or products to consumers, i.e., break the law.

Karunamon 10y ago
This is a dichotomy I reject. Laws should be evaluated on an individual basis, not as a body, otherwise you're logically obligated to be as bothered at people going 51 in a 50 as rape and murder. On top of that, many laws are bogus, pointless, useless, more are actively harmful. Hell, Uber got a start by flaunting a law that had little actual use in the real world save for protecting monopolists with very flimsy pretenses. You probably flaunt the speed limit on a daily basis commuting to work because the alternative is less safe and less efficient for all concerned. Let's not pretend that ignoring useless laws is a slight against some broader philosophical concept.
- leephillips 10y ago
  "Uber got a start by flaunting a law" "You probably flaunt the speed limit" Probably not what you intended to say. More substantially, I think the licensing regulations for taxis (that's what you have in mind, no?) are far from obviously of "little actual use". This would vary greatly by region; I understand that London and Tokyo, for example, require taxi drivers to prove familiarity with their city's layout before being allowed to take passengers. Maybe this is to enforce a monopoly, or maybe it's for the benefit of the public. It's at least debatable.
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    Right, but the fact that it's debatable at all means that you don't automatically get to automatically classify breaking a law as a moral evil.

anigbrowl 10y ago

This is the same government that would have no issues to use the same techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives. Local government is not the same as the NSA. Quit with these fallacies of composition.

CompanionCuube 10y ago
Ever heard of a Stingray? https://www.aclu.org/map/stingray-tracking-devices-whos-got-them https://www.aclu.org/map/stingray-tracking-devices-whos-got-...
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Of course, but it's inaccurate to attribute identical behavior to all local governments as if they were part of a single hierarchy.
  - CompanionCuube 10y ago
    The behavior is attributed by the ACLU to locales mentioned in the NYT article such as MA and NV. "Uber used these methods to evade the authorities in cities such as Boston, Paris and Las Vegas"

snappyTertle 10y ago

I think the better question is: Does the law that Uber is subverting make sense in the first place?

a3n 10y ago
And a better question than that is: should a corporation be picking and choosing which laws they follow and which they don't?
- snappyTertle 10y ago
  And an even better question: Would we need to ask ourselves these questions if these nonsense laws didn't exist?
  - ubernostrum 10y ago
    Of course not. If we got rid of all these laws the corporations would simply enforce terms of service on us, containing whatever they want. And then would argue that we freely entered into those terms of our own free will by being born where we were and when we were!
    - ycmbntrthrwaway 10y ago
      > And then would argue that we freely entered into those terms of our own free will by being born where we were and when we were! You just described what the government does.
      - a3n 10y ago
        Except the government's "TOS" are constrained by the Constitution. No such constraint on corporate TOS, particularly in the thought experiment where all laws are gone.
    - snappyTertle 10y ago
      How would they enforce these evil TOS? They don't have the power to do so.

huffmsa 10y ago

The governments of the world wish they could be this efficient at leveraging techniques like this on their people.

grandalf 10y ago

I totally agree with this. One thing that should be noted is that in this case the government was acting in the corrupt interest of the incumbent taxi industry. Once the system has been corrupted, tactics like Grayball become the only way for any company to disrupt the industry. My guess is that Grayball was used most in jurisdictions with the most corruption and regulatory capture inflicted by the taxi/livery industry.

brightball 10y ago

I'm a little split on this... I personally couldn't imagine ever doing something like this...but on the other hand Uber has clearly demonstrated demand for their service that's been fought at every corner with entrenched interests that have government connections, alluded to in the article. I'm not endorsing it...but I can understand what would drive them to do it. Uber's playing dirty ball that's all about winning at all costs. The problem is that their opposition, for the most part...is ALSO playing dirty ball.

ycmbntrthrwaway 10y ago

I'm totally on Uber side here. Both Uber users and drivers use the service voluntarily. It may discriminate, be unsafe, whatever, but I just ride a bus and don't care. When government tries to interfere with voluntary exchange, it is OK to circumvent it. See what HN says when government tries to prevent you from using certain websites or services (Signal messenger, just for example). We call it censorship, use VPNs and circumvent government regulations all the ways possible. Service providers hide behind CDNs and use domain fronting to increase collateral damage, move to liberal countries and things like that. It is the same case here.

MarkMc 10y ago
You don't care about discrimination? So it's OK for a restaurant or landlord or private college to post a sign saying, "Whites Only"?

TeMPOraL 10y ago

So far, at least in the West, it's mostly private companies that form the "surveillance state" and that use collected data to fuck with people.

cgearhart 10y ago

And in both cases, it's _people_ who wind up with the short end of the deal.