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I'm not a fan of Uber, but it seems like it's their right to decide who is allowed to use their service. (Baring protected classes, of course.) If a regulator

I'm not a fan of Uber, but it seems like it's their right to decide who is allowed to use their service. (Baring protected classes, of course.) If a regulator started creating fake user accounts in order to scrape Uber's data, I don't see why Uber can't put a stop to that. And if a legislator is a vocal critic of Uber, I don't see why Uber should be forced to allow them to use their service.

pvg 10y ago
Nobody was forcing Uber to do anything. They were trying to deny agents of public regulatory bodies the ability to assess them. That isn't any kind of 'right'.
- dangero 10y ago
  "right" is a moral judgement. It depends on whether you see this as civil disobedience. It may be "right" and also illegal at the same time.
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    "Civil disobedience" is a term and group of actions used when fighting for racial equality during the civil rights movement. Equating that with anything uber, a multibillion international company, does is kind of gross.
  - Dangeranger 10y ago
    The law makes it pretty clear whether a business has the "right" to interfere with a criminal investigation. Disagreeing with a law doesn't give you the "right" to not follow the law.
  - pvg 10y ago
    Since you can apply this to pretty much anything, this analysis is neither particularly insightful nor useful. It's a godwining in which you replace Hitler with Thoreau.
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    Yeah but Uber's behavior is definitely wrong.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
    If you look at civil disobedience as practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr and Gandhi, it was to highlight injustice by disobeying the law in question, and then accepting the full consequences of breaking the law. Breaking a law you dont like, doing shady things to avoid getting caught, and raising billions in investments is not at like civil disobedience and only cheapens the real civil disobedience that addressed great injustice at great personal cost to the people involved.
  - sfilargi 10y ago
    I may be wrong but I don't think you can label something as "civil disobedience" when it is done by a corporation or when it is done for profit.
    - wavefunction 10y ago
      I believe you to be correct in your understanding of what constitutes civil disobedience.
- sushid 10y ago
  I'm no fan of Uber, but if there are LEOs trying to use your product fraudulently (e.g. fake data, ordering an Uber not for a ride but to impound cars), doesn't it make sense to try and stop this sort of operation? If you had LEOs peering into your office windows (legal, but undesirable), wouldn't you want to at least have a blind to try and stop them from peeking?
  - pvg 10y ago
    ordering an Uber not for a ride but to impound cars Enforcement is not 'fraudulent use'. These analogies are very strained while the thing that took place is very simple.
  - princeb 10y ago
    no, doesn't really make sense. that'll be like arthur andersen shredding enron's financial accounts. can't investigate if there's nothing to investigate!
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > I'm no fan of Uber, but if there are LEOs trying to use your product fraudulently (e.g. fake data, ordering an Uber not for a ride but to impound cars), doesn't it make sense to try and stop this sort of operation? If it's actually fraudulent, then, yes, you should stop it by suing and getting an injunction against the illegal government action. If it's just enforcing the law that you are breaking, maybe you should quit breaking the law rather than engaging in elaborate technical means to conceal the violation, and expecting that won't cause additional problems when it is discovered.
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago
    A blind != a hologram projecting a false image while you do something illegal inside.
    - MichaelGG 10y ago
      But even that would be OK wouldn't it? Writing "Flour" on a bag before putting contraband powder in it shouldn't be illegal.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> I'm not a fan of Uber, but it seems like it's their right to decide who is allowed to use their service. It's not their right to operate where they are prohibited, and it's also not their right to feed people believed to be enforcing that prohibition false information to prevent themselves from being busted for violating that prohibition.
- stock_toaster 10y ago
  Maybe also a conspiracy charge as Uber was actively/knowingly helping drivers (who are not technically Uber employees, right?) break laws in cities by providing them a means to evade authorities?
- nostromo 10y ago
  We have a tool for this -- the government asks for a subpoena from a judge to force Uber to provide their data. It's all out in the open and Uber can argue against the subpoena if they choose. Scraping APIs with fake profiles isn't the right way to go about this.
  - j2kun 10y ago
    I was under the impression it's illegal to intentionally mislead any federal employee, subpoena or not, in any communication whatsoever. Whether it's the "right" way or not, it seems like an API counts as a form of communication.
    - philip1209 10y ago
      State laws are not enforced by federal officials though, correct?
      - sandworm101 10y ago
        No, but they can investigate where there is the possibility of conspiracies. Basically everything Uber does involves the flow of data across state lines and the feds can investigate otherwise state crimes that cross multiple states. This is what Uber needs to really worry about: "If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371
DannyBee 10y ago
That's not what happened here at all. Uber deliberately tried to identify which users were law officers, and hide lawbreaking on the part of their drivers from them, in order to enable uber to make money.
- nebabyte 10y ago
  Yeah, IANAL but it sounds like the definition of obstruction of justice
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    Not really. For textbook obstruction one would need a criminal investigation that Uber was seeking to stymie. There needs to be an underlying actual crime. Whether Uber has committed any crimes is not clear. They will more likely bring conspiracy rather than obstruction charges.
    - nebabyte 10y ago
      Ic, thanks for the insight.
    - DannyBee 10y ago
      "For textbook obstruction one would need a criminal investigation that Uber was seeking to stymie." In the case i'm aware of, law enforcement was investigating criminal violations of local ordinances by unlicensed uber drivers. While i'm sure not a felony, that's definitely a criminal investigation they were seeking to stymie.
      - sandworm101 10y ago
        If you are going to bring obstruction charges you will want to base them on something greater than license violations. That's akin to the cop threatening me with obstruction charges for warning other motorcyclists about a speed trap. Conspiracy, on the other hand, is a serious crime unto itself.
kafkaesq 10y ago
I'm not a fan of Uber, but it seems like it's their right to decide who is allowed to use their service. It may "seem so" to you. But the law "seems to" say otherwise. Which is precisely the point.
pyrophane 10y ago
That isn't really what happened here. Uber didn't block regulators from using their app, they populated the app with fake data to deceive them.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  It populated the app with fake data to cause them to effectively not be able to use their service.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
analogist 10y ago
So you would be fine with your local restaurant "denying service" and locking the doors only when the food safety inspectors show up?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- marme 10y ago
  yes if the food safety inspector is not performing an inspection a restaurant has right to refuse them service. Uber was deny inspectors service while they were not doing announced inspections. This is like saying you cant refuse to sell alcohol to a minor if you know they are part of government undercover sting. Uber is able to identify government agents try to perform a sting and preemptively refused them service
- bduerst 10y ago
  What they're talking about is a red herring. This is more analogous to the food safety inspectors showing up, and Uber intentionally leading them to a different restaurant's kitchen - always, even when the inspector isn't there to officially inspect them.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    It's more like the restaurant suspecting someone of investigating them and giving them a different class of service. The analogy is totally busted though, because these investigators didn't show up at Uber and ask for info, they just went around using the service. Nothing wrong with telling a customer their shrimp plate will be done any minute now and hoping they give up and leave.
    - pimmen89 10y ago
      Yes there is if you believe that customer to be a health inspector and you move set up your shop somewhere else with the intent of evading said health inspector. See the keyword "intent" there? If your intent with an action is to break the law, the action is illegal.
SilasX 10y ago
Yes, Uber does have the right to remove you from their service, for mostly any reason -- probably even because they think you're a "narc". But Greyball went way beyond that, and actively misled "suspicious" (probably sting agent) users into thinking cars would come, when they never did, wasting their time. That crosses over into interfering with an investigation -- the combination of "wasting someone's time" and "because that someone is an investigator". Wasting the time of an abusive user? Probably okay. Kicking off law enforcement officers? Probably okay. Deliberately wasting the time of investigators? Probably crosses the line. Compare two scenarios when an undercover officer is investigating a biker bar for dealing meth: Scenario A: The officer seems somehow off to the bartender. Bartender glances around at his buddies, who shake their heads. "We don't want your kind in in here, get out." Scenario B: Officer is identified as a cop. Bartender invites him to sit at a table far in the back with no view of anything. Any time the officer gets up, he's told to leave or sit back down. They have members stand within earshot of him and pretend to plan out fake meth deals at places where nothing will actually happen. In A, the bar is on firm legal ground. In B, they're not, and that's basically what the Greyball program is. Note: insights drawn from the earlier discussion about this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13785564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13785564
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  What if I think investigators are following me, so I get a friend to drive my car around all day, "wasting" their time. Am I now guilty of a crime? Seems like Uber did the same kinda thing.
  - gertef 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice#Obstruction_trends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice#Obstruc...
    - ZoF 10y ago
      A real cogent and meaningful contribution. Thanks. If there is no formally defined investigation, how can you possibly call 'obstruction of justice.'
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
akerro 10y ago
>I'm not a fan of Uber, but it seems like it's their right to decide who is allowed to use their service. No, they have to provide service to everyone, equally. Imagine a situation: a cake store decides not to prepare a cake for gay wedding.
stordoff 10y ago
I'd imagine it comes down to intent. Banning non-protected classes of people for personal/ideological reasons is fine, whereas banning the same class with the intention of avoiding an investigation isn't.

pvg 10y ago

Nobody was forcing Uber to do anything. They were trying to deny agents of public regulatory bodies the ability to assess them. That isn't any kind of 'right'.

dangero 10y ago
"right" is a moral judgement. It depends on whether you see this as civil disobedience. It may be "right" and also illegal at the same time.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  "Civil disobedience" is a term and group of actions used when fighting for racial equality during the civil rights movement. Equating that with anything uber, a multibillion international company, does is kind of gross.
- Dangeranger 10y ago
  The law makes it pretty clear whether a business has the "right" to interfere with a criminal investigation. Disagreeing with a law doesn't give you the "right" to not follow the law.
- pvg 10y ago
  Since you can apply this to pretty much anything, this analysis is neither particularly insightful nor useful. It's a godwining in which you replace Hitler with Thoreau.
- wavefunction 10y ago
  Yeah but Uber's behavior is definitely wrong.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
  If you look at civil disobedience as practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr and Gandhi, it was to highlight injustice by disobeying the law in question, and then accepting the full consequences of breaking the law. Breaking a law you dont like, doing shady things to avoid getting caught, and raising billions in investments is not at like civil disobedience and only cheapens the real civil disobedience that addressed great injustice at great personal cost to the people involved.
- sfilargi 10y ago
  I may be wrong but I don't think you can label something as "civil disobedience" when it is done by a corporation or when it is done for profit.
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    I believe you to be correct in your understanding of what constitutes civil disobedience.
sushid 10y ago
I'm no fan of Uber, but if there are LEOs trying to use your product fraudulently (e.g. fake data, ordering an Uber not for a ride but to impound cars), doesn't it make sense to try and stop this sort of operation? If you had LEOs peering into your office windows (legal, but undesirable), wouldn't you want to at least have a blind to try and stop them from peeking?
- pvg 10y ago
  ordering an Uber not for a ride but to impound cars Enforcement is not 'fraudulent use'. These analogies are very strained while the thing that took place is very simple.
- princeb 10y ago
  no, doesn't really make sense. that'll be like arthur andersen shredding enron's financial accounts. can't investigate if there's nothing to investigate!
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I'm no fan of Uber, but if there are LEOs trying to use your product fraudulently (e.g. fake data, ordering an Uber not for a ride but to impound cars), doesn't it make sense to try and stop this sort of operation? If it's actually fraudulent, then, yes, you should stop it by suing and getting an injunction against the illegal government action. If it's just enforcing the law that you are breaking, maybe you should quit breaking the law rather than engaging in elaborate technical means to conceal the violation, and expecting that won't cause additional problems when it is discovered.
- johncolanduoni 10y ago
  A blind != a hologram projecting a false image while you do something illegal inside.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    But even that would be OK wouldn't it? Writing "Flour" on a bag before putting contraband powder in it shouldn't be illegal.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> I'm not a fan of Uber, but it seems like it's their right to decide who is allowed to use their service. It's not their right to operate where they are prohibited, and it's also not their right to feed people believed to be enforcing that prohibition false information to prevent themselves from being busted for violating that prohibition.

stock_toaster 10y ago
Maybe also a conspiracy charge as Uber was actively/knowingly helping drivers (who are not technically Uber employees, right?) break laws in cities by providing them a means to evade authorities?
nostromo 10y ago
We have a tool for this -- the government asks for a subpoena from a judge to force Uber to provide their data. It's all out in the open and Uber can argue against the subpoena if they choose. Scraping APIs with fake profiles isn't the right way to go about this.
- j2kun 10y ago
  I was under the impression it's illegal to intentionally mislead any federal employee, subpoena or not, in any communication whatsoever. Whether it's the "right" way or not, it seems like an API counts as a form of communication.
  - philip1209 10y ago
    State laws are not enforced by federal officials though, correct?
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      No, but they can investigate where there is the possibility of conspiracies. Basically everything Uber does involves the flow of data across state lines and the feds can investigate otherwise state crimes that cross multiple states. This is what Uber needs to really worry about: "If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371

DannyBee 10y ago

That's not what happened here at all. Uber deliberately tried to identify which users were law officers, and hide lawbreaking on the part of their drivers from them, in order to enable uber to make money.

nebabyte 10y ago
Yeah, IANAL but it sounds like the definition of obstruction of justice
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Not really. For textbook obstruction one would need a criminal investigation that Uber was seeking to stymie. There needs to be an underlying actual crime. Whether Uber has committed any crimes is not clear. They will more likely bring conspiracy rather than obstruction charges.
  - nebabyte 10y ago
    Ic, thanks for the insight.
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    "For textbook obstruction one would need a criminal investigation that Uber was seeking to stymie." In the case i'm aware of, law enforcement was investigating criminal violations of local ordinances by unlicensed uber drivers. While i'm sure not a felony, that's definitely a criminal investigation they were seeking to stymie.
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      If you are going to bring obstruction charges you will want to base them on something greater than license violations. That's akin to the cop threatening me with obstruction charges for warning other motorcyclists about a speed trap. Conspiracy, on the other hand, is a serious crime unto itself.

kafkaesq 10y ago

I'm not a fan of Uber, but it seems like it's their right to decide who is allowed to use their service. It may "seem so" to you. But the law "seems to" say otherwise. Which is precisely the point.

pyrophane 10y ago

That isn't really what happened here. Uber didn't block regulators from using their app, they populated the app with fake data to deceive them.

InclinedPlane 10y ago
It populated the app with fake data to cause them to effectively not be able to use their service.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

analogist 10y ago

So you would be fine with your local restaurant "denying service" and locking the doors only when the food safety inspectors show up?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
marme 10y ago
yes if the food safety inspector is not performing an inspection a restaurant has right to refuse them service. Uber was deny inspectors service while they were not doing announced inspections. This is like saying you cant refuse to sell alcohol to a minor if you know they are part of government undercover sting. Uber is able to identify government agents try to perform a sting and preemptively refused them service
bduerst 10y ago
What they're talking about is a red herring. This is more analogous to the food safety inspectors showing up, and Uber intentionally leading them to a different restaurant's kitchen - always, even when the inspector isn't there to officially inspect them.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  It's more like the restaurant suspecting someone of investigating them and giving them a different class of service. The analogy is totally busted though, because these investigators didn't show up at Uber and ask for info, they just went around using the service. Nothing wrong with telling a customer their shrimp plate will be done any minute now and hoping they give up and leave.
  - pimmen89 10y ago
    Yes there is if you believe that customer to be a health inspector and you move set up your shop somewhere else with the intent of evading said health inspector. See the keyword "intent" there? If your intent with an action is to break the law, the action is illegal.

SilasX 10y ago

Yes, Uber does have the right to remove you from their service, for mostly any reason -- probably even because they think you're a "narc". But Greyball went way beyond that, and actively misled "suspicious" (probably sting agent) users into thinking cars would come, when they never did, wasting their time. That crosses over into interfering with an investigation -- the combination of "wasting someone's time" and "because that someone is an investigator". Wasting the time of an abusive user? Probably okay. Kicking off law enforcement officers? Probably okay. Deliberately wasting the time of investigators? Probably crosses the line. Compare two scenarios when an undercover officer is investigating a biker bar for dealing meth: Scenario A: The officer seems somehow off to the bartender. Bartender glances around at his buddies, who shake their heads. "We don't want your kind in in here, get out." Scenario B: Officer is identified as a cop. Bartender invites him to sit at a table far in the back with no view of anything. Any time the officer gets up, he's told to leave or sit back down. They have members stand within earshot of him and pretend to plan out fake meth deals at places where nothing will actually happen. In A, the bar is on firm legal ground. In B, they're not, and that's basically what the Greyball program is. Note: insights drawn from the earlier discussion about this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13785564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13785564

MichaelGG 10y ago
What if I think investigators are following me, so I get a friend to drive my car around all day, "wasting" their time. Am I now guilty of a crime? Seems like Uber did the same kinda thing.
- gertef 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice#Obstruction_trends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice#Obstruc...
  - ZoF 10y ago
    A real cogent and meaningful contribution. Thanks. If there is no formally defined investigation, how can you possibly call 'obstruction of justice.'

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

akerro 10y ago

>I'm not a fan of Uber, but it seems like it's their right to decide who is allowed to use their service. No, they have to provide service to everyone, equally. Imagine a situation: a cake store decides not to prepare a cake for gay wedding.

stordoff 10y ago

I'd imagine it comes down to intent. Banning non-protected classes of people for personal/ideological reasons is fine, whereas banning the same class with the intention of avoiding an investigation isn't.