16 ms·

To summarize: An Uber rider in India alleged she was raped by an Uber driver. The driver was already awaiting trial for four other criminal offenses, and was ul

To summarize: An Uber rider in India alleged she was raped by an Uber driver. The driver was already awaiting trial for four other criminal offenses, and was ultimately convicted of the crime. An Uber executive (Eric Alexander) flew to India and (legally or illegally) obtained her medical records, then showed these to multiple executives at the company. These records were then used by Alexander, Travis Kalanick, and Emil Michael to dispute (internally) the woman's account of the story. They claimed that a local competitor was trying to sabotage them by planting this story, which again, involves an Uber customer being raped by a driver facing multiple (other) criminal accusations. Needless to say they lack the training necessary to decipher a medical record, a rape may or may not have left evidence present in that record, and it's a gross violation of customer privacy, business ethics, and (probably) the law. This is repulsive conduct and it's unbelievable any of these people are still attached to the company.

bjl 9y ago
At this point (and really, long before this point) any ethical engineer would have left this company. Those remaining are tacitly condoning this type of activity, and should take a long hard look at their priorities.
- antjanus 9y ago
  That's pretty much what I'm thinking. Leave the company, stop using it, and fuck everything else. I realize that leaving a job isn't easy but an engineer that makes it to Uber is probably more than capable jumping ship.
  - bjl 9y ago
    > I realize that leaving a job isn't easy but an engineer that makes it to Uber is probably more than capable jumping ship. Who knows how long that will be the case. Nowadays, I imagine a prolonged employment at Uber is a serious black mark on a resume.
- employee8000 9y ago
  No, this is bullshit. Since I joined, Uber has been behaving very ethically. Yes, there have been problems, which are mainly with unchecked culture in some groups, but I think things have turned around for the entire company. There have been major issues with a very aggressive culture but unlike most other companies, the management is really trying to change things. We will see if any differences are really made but I'm optimistic. All you hear about from the media is the shitty things from the past, but if you had visibility into the great things that uber does that I see every day, you would think differently. Case in point, the new exec from Apple and the Harvard business professor who both joined this week. They have complete clarity into what kind of company Uber is right now, and they both joined. Yes, Uber has made mistakes in the past, but since 2015 I think it has really grown up. It has issues just like any other large company but unlike other companies, they have aired their dirty laundry and is at least trying to change. I have no qualms with working for Uber and i have no trouble with my ethics or morals working here. If someone has a bigoted view on Uber or Uber employees without knowing all the facts, then I have no issues never working for or with them, because they probably have other unchecked bigoted views as well, and would probably be terrible to work with.
  - gpawl 9y ago
    Are these not since 2015? http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-scandal-recap-2017-3/#friday-february-24-losing-the-benefit-of-the-doubt-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-scandal-recap-2017-3/#fr...
  - mikeisaacNYT 9y ago
    I'm a reporter for the New York Times. You are dead wrong. This account is accurate. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/world/asia/uber-driver-in-india-is-found-guilty-of-rape.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/world/asia/uber-driver-in... I imagine you're a lower-to-mid-level employee and don't have knowledge of this incident firsthand.
    - employee8000 9y ago
      When did I say that the account was wrong?
kafkaesq 9y ago
This is repulsive conduct and it's unbelievable any of these people are still attached to the company. Unfortunately it's all too believable.
braveo 9y ago
I decided a while back that Uber was a horrible company and they will never have any of my money. And the shit keeps coming. At some point hopefully others will make the same realization.
propman 9y ago
Not even allegedly, she was raped and apparently Uber's background checks were trash and didn't follow proper city laws so they got banned in New Delhi. The guy admitted the rape and claimed he'd raped others, he's serving life in prison and he threatened rape victim with murder and raping her with an iron rod. She was a 26 y/o financial executive and sued Uber and settled out of court. Yeah if you're getting strangers to drive women alone at night, I'd hope you'd follow proper background checks. Just read some other links in article and they were also sued for having at least 25 riders be former sex offenders, sexual assault, and murderers just in Cali wtf. I seriously want to see how many sexual assaults have occurred in uber vs taxis. I see one every day from Uber just in Cali. If taxis did that they would lose their 250k-million dollar medallion so that's an incentive I guess to an archaic regulation. I know others disagree with me, but I would not hire any felons to be drivers. You're giving them complete power over any passenger with no witnesses. I'm completely okay with felons working anywhere with people, but I wouldn't hire one to babysit my kid. That's the similar level of power they have in a car at night and honestly most rape assaults I've seen, the perpetrators had priors
- ziszis 9y ago
  Can you link to the information re: "having at least 25 riders be former sex offenders, sexual assault, and murderers just in Cali" Don't see it in the source article.
  - propman 9y ago
    http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/DA-major-flaws-in-Uber-background-checks-allow-6453865.php?t=128a1259eb7d4f3860&cmpid=email-premium http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/DA-major-flaws-i... The last hyperlink has it and this is them paying the fine http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Uber-settles-lawsuit-with-SF-LA-over-driver-7235244.php http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Uber-settles-lawsuit-... What's odd to me is those 25 apparently were only found because they had been cited by the police. So the 99.9% that weren't cited by the police could have tens of thousands more at least how I understand it
- kakarot 9y ago
e40 9y ago
This is repulsive conduct and it's unbelievable any of these people are still attached to the company. As they say, a fish rots from the head. Until the top person is fired/replaced, it will continue to happen, because that person will just replace the fired person with another like him.
MichaelGG 9y ago
It is believable they might be worried about sabotage. Fine. It's more surprising that they'd do this themselves. Why not hire an outside firm of some sort? Hell, they have so much money, they could afford to plant employees at all of their competitors and pay them in an untraceable fashion, or through a third party to do "competition analyzation". Then today they could say they're Shocked, shocked! At the misconduct of this contractor and they're going to sever all ties and withhold payment until a third party review has taken place. While moving all the actual agents to another third party, repeat.
dismantlethesun 9y ago
> Needless to say they lack the training necessary to decipher a medical record, a rape may or may not have left evidence present in that record A great many medical reports are written for the eyes of non-practitioners and don't necessarily need a medical professional to decode the information. Words such as "injuries are consistent with _____" are typically included, because the intended audience is police, judges, lawyers, and other medical laymen who are more interested in the conclusions than the minutiae. To me, the most important question here is "was this document legally obtained"? If it was, then my follow up questions would involve why, and for what reason the laws allow that legality to occur. All I can say now is that publicly Uber acted 'okay' after the fact by immediately adding additional safety features, deeper background checks, and never publicly disparaging the victim or her story. Before the incident, however, they were terrible in the wrong by not following public safety laws regarding background checks, as these laws were created to help prevent the incident that occurred. As a matter of nuance, Uber rose to prominence by ignoring certain laws and some cherish them for this, but that does not mean that all regulations should simply be ignored.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  There is no HIPAA-counterpart in India, so I won't be surprised if the executive got access to the report through something as simple as 'asking for it nicely'.

bjl 9y ago

At this point (and really, long before this point) any ethical engineer would have left this company. Those remaining are tacitly condoning this type of activity, and should take a long hard look at their priorities.

antjanus 9y ago
That's pretty much what I'm thinking. Leave the company, stop using it, and fuck everything else. I realize that leaving a job isn't easy but an engineer that makes it to Uber is probably more than capable jumping ship.
- bjl 9y ago
  > I realize that leaving a job isn't easy but an engineer that makes it to Uber is probably more than capable jumping ship. Who knows how long that will be the case. Nowadays, I imagine a prolonged employment at Uber is a serious black mark on a resume.
employee8000 9y ago
No, this is bullshit. Since I joined, Uber has been behaving very ethically. Yes, there have been problems, which are mainly with unchecked culture in some groups, but I think things have turned around for the entire company. There have been major issues with a very aggressive culture but unlike most other companies, the management is really trying to change things. We will see if any differences are really made but I'm optimistic. All you hear about from the media is the shitty things from the past, but if you had visibility into the great things that uber does that I see every day, you would think differently. Case in point, the new exec from Apple and the Harvard business professor who both joined this week. They have complete clarity into what kind of company Uber is right now, and they both joined. Yes, Uber has made mistakes in the past, but since 2015 I think it has really grown up. It has issues just like any other large company but unlike other companies, they have aired their dirty laundry and is at least trying to change. I have no qualms with working for Uber and i have no trouble with my ethics or morals working here. If someone has a bigoted view on Uber or Uber employees without knowing all the facts, then I have no issues never working for or with them, because they probably have other unchecked bigoted views as well, and would probably be terrible to work with.
- gpawl 9y ago
  Are these not since 2015? http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-scandal-recap-2017-3/#friday-february-24-losing-the-benefit-of-the-doubt-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-scandal-recap-2017-3/#fr...
- mikeisaacNYT 9y ago
  I'm a reporter for the New York Times. You are dead wrong. This account is accurate. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/world/asia/uber-driver-in-india-is-found-guilty-of-rape.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/world/asia/uber-driver-in... I imagine you're a lower-to-mid-level employee and don't have knowledge of this incident firsthand.
  - employee8000 9y ago
    When did I say that the account was wrong?

kafkaesq 9y ago

This is repulsive conduct and it's unbelievable any of these people are still attached to the company. Unfortunately it's all too believable.

braveo 9y ago

I decided a while back that Uber was a horrible company and they will never have any of my money. And the shit keeps coming. At some point hopefully others will make the same realization.

propman 9y ago

Not even allegedly, she was raped and apparently Uber's background checks were trash and didn't follow proper city laws so they got banned in New Delhi. The guy admitted the rape and claimed he'd raped others, he's serving life in prison and he threatened rape victim with murder and raping her with an iron rod. She was a 26 y/o financial executive and sued Uber and settled out of court. Yeah if you're getting strangers to drive women alone at night, I'd hope you'd follow proper background checks. Just read some other links in article and they were also sued for having at least 25 riders be former sex offenders, sexual assault, and murderers just in Cali wtf. I seriously want to see how many sexual assaults have occurred in uber vs taxis. I see one every day from Uber just in Cali. If taxis did that they would lose their 250k-million dollar medallion so that's an incentive I guess to an archaic regulation. I know others disagree with me, but I would not hire any felons to be drivers. You're giving them complete power over any passenger with no witnesses. I'm completely okay with felons working anywhere with people, but I wouldn't hire one to babysit my kid. That's the similar level of power they have in a car at night and honestly most rape assaults I've seen, the perpetrators had priors

ziszis 9y ago
Can you link to the information re: "having at least 25 riders be former sex offenders, sexual assault, and murderers just in Cali" Don't see it in the source article.
- propman 9y ago
  http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/DA-major-flaws-in-Uber-background-checks-allow-6453865.php?t=128a1259eb7d4f3860&cmpid=email-premium http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/DA-major-flaws-i... The last hyperlink has it and this is them paying the fine http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Uber-settles-lawsuit-with-SF-LA-over-driver-7235244.php http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Uber-settles-lawsuit-... What's odd to me is those 25 apparently were only found because they had been cited by the police. So the 99.9% that weren't cited by the police could have tens of thousands more at least how I understand it
kakarot 9y ago

e40 9y ago

This is repulsive conduct and it's unbelievable any of these people are still attached to the company. As they say, a fish rots from the head. Until the top person is fired/replaced, it will continue to happen, because that person will just replace the fired person with another like him.

MichaelGG 9y ago

It is believable they might be worried about sabotage. Fine. It's more surprising that they'd do this themselves. Why not hire an outside firm of some sort? Hell, they have so much money, they could afford to plant employees at all of their competitors and pay them in an untraceable fashion, or through a third party to do "competition analyzation". Then today they could say they're Shocked, shocked! At the misconduct of this contractor and they're going to sever all ties and withhold payment until a third party review has taken place. While moving all the actual agents to another third party, repeat.

dismantlethesun 9y ago

> Needless to say they lack the training necessary to decipher a medical record, a rape may or may not have left evidence present in that record A great many medical reports are written for the eyes of non-practitioners and don't necessarily need a medical professional to decode the information. Words such as "injuries are consistent with _____" are typically included, because the intended audience is police, judges, lawyers, and other medical laymen who are more interested in the conclusions than the minutiae. To me, the most important question here is "was this document legally obtained"? If it was, then my follow up questions would involve why, and for what reason the laws allow that legality to occur. All I can say now is that publicly Uber acted 'okay' after the fact by immediately adding additional safety features, deeper background checks, and never publicly disparaging the victim or her story. Before the incident, however, they were terrible in the wrong by not following public safety laws regarding background checks, as these laws were created to help prevent the incident that occurred. As a matter of nuance, Uber rose to prominence by ignoring certain laws and some cherish them for this, but that does not mean that all regulations should simply be ignored.

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
There is no HIPAA-counterpart in India, so I won't be surprised if the executive got access to the report through something as simple as 'asking for it nicely'.