5 ms·

Agreed. I think Uber is terrible, but I also think this is just no-brainer competitor research.

pyrale 10y ago
There is a strong dichotomy in the minds of many american people, between large private companies and public offices. This is an instance of it: Uber has shown in the past that they can wield considerable powers, and are prone to misuse it. Therefore, them collecting data about drivers, a population that is vulnerable towards Uber (and a subset of which we know is shared between the two platforms), is dangerous. If you approach this dichotomy from the other side, can you imagine the NSA being described as doing no-brainer customer research ?
- fapjacks 10y ago
  If Uber had been circuit-bending the Lyft app or Lyft's API or rider/driver devices, I would think it unacceptable. But this information is being provided by Lyft inside their app. Uber was just aggregating this information and storing and analysing the data. Also the NSA is doing a lot worse things and we know this for certain. I find it distressing how many people seemingly have forgotten about that. If the NSA were only going this far, I'd be pretty happy.
  - pluma 10y ago
    > But this information is being provided by Lyft inside their app. No it isn't. Not according to the article. According to the article a fraction of that information is provided as part of the app but Uber went ahead and exploited the lack of operational security on Lyft's side to crawl _all_ the information by traversing over information intended for other users. Repeatedly.
- smokeyj 10y ago
  > can you imagine the NSA being described as doing no-brainer customer research ? Pretty sure HN would agree with that.
rubidium 10y ago
No it's not. Its ok to estimate your competitors size by driving by their parking lot and counting how many cars are there. It's not ok to bypass security and access their company directory. The ethical line is "what is publically available following all laws and regulations".

There is a strong dichotomy in the minds of many american people, between large private companies and public offices. This is an instance of it: Uber has shown in the past that they can wield considerable powers, and are prone to misuse it. Therefore, them collecting data about drivers, a population that is vulnerable towards Uber (and a subset of which we know is shared between the two platforms), is dangerous. If you approach this dichotomy from the other side, can you imagine the NSA being described as doing no-brainer customer research ?

fapjacks 10y ago
If Uber had been circuit-bending the Lyft app or Lyft's API or rider/driver devices, I would think it unacceptable. But this information is being provided by Lyft inside their app. Uber was just aggregating this information and storing and analysing the data. Also the NSA is doing a lot worse things and we know this for certain. I find it distressing how many people seemingly have forgotten about that. If the NSA were only going this far, I'd be pretty happy.
- pluma 10y ago
  > But this information is being provided by Lyft inside their app. No it isn't. Not according to the article. According to the article a fraction of that information is provided as part of the app but Uber went ahead and exploited the lack of operational security on Lyft's side to crawl _all_ the information by traversing over information intended for other users. Repeatedly.
smokeyj 10y ago
> can you imagine the NSA being described as doing no-brainer customer research ? Pretty sure HN would agree with that.

rubidium 10y ago

No it's not. Its ok to estimate your competitors size by driving by their parking lot and counting how many cars are there. It's not ok to bypass security and access their company directory. The ethical line is "what is publically available following all laws and regulations".