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Uber shuts down app that told drivers if Uber underpaid them

• willis936 6y ago
  Free market for me but not for thee. Anyway, it’s just a copyright takedown. Change the name and move on.
  • JoshTriplett 6y ago
    Trademark and copyright are not the same. This is a trademark issue. Also, not every name containing a trademark is a trademark violation; for instance, while "UberCheats" violates the trademark on "Uber", a name like "Watcher for Uber" would not be. The general "XYZ for Trademark" as a descriptive phrase tends to sidestep trademark issues. But on the other hand, renaming it "RideshareCheats" would sidestep the legal issue entirely and also open the door to generalizing it to cover other such services.
    • koolba 6y ago
      To prevent possible defamation lawsuits, you're even better off going with a positive sounding name like: Fair Fare Share
      • sep_field 6y ago
        thats a super catchy name!
        • koolba 6y ago
          Ha! Maybe I should start a marketing company.
    • xtracto 6y ago
      But why would it? If I call it "HuevoCheats" would it violate some US company's trademark called "Huevo" when Huevo is a valid word in Spanish?
      • Jaxkr 6y ago
        Whether or not a word appears in a dictionary has no bearing on its enforceability as a trademark. Ultimately it’s up to the courts to decide. If your app could reasonably be confused for an official product of “Huevo” corp, it would constitute trademark infringement.
        • Retric 6y ago
          It’s very unlikely for anyone in the marketplace to believe “UberCheats” is made by Uber or cause confusion in the marketplace. As such they are unlikely to win a court case, a Google internal process on the other hand is another story.
      • chrismcb 6y ago
        If someone has a trademark, in software, for the word huevo... Then possibly. Microsoft had trademarks on the word "word" as well as "windows" In this case though, the suit is winnable as i think you can prove no one is confused between UberEats and Uber heats. But honestly it isn't worth the hassle. The best solution is to change the name.
      • unishark 6y ago
        If you literally sell huevos as your business there may be a problem. Otherwise, as the other poster says, it's just about avoiding confusion. There can be Bob's Hardware and Bob's Grocery store as separate trademarks.
    • stefan_ 6y ago
      No one has established any trademark violation. All we have are a bunch of angry emails and Google doing judge, jury and executioner in response.
      • random5634 6y ago
        How did Google prevent UberCheats from litigating this issue? If UberCheats don't think they infringe the UberEats or other trademarks, they can litigate the issue normally. In this case Google served as the judge how? This looks like a pretty clear trademark violation! Rideshare Cheat Monitor for Uber would be MUCH safer than resuing an extremely similar sounding name. Or just RiderCheat Monitor. Given they don't think their name is similar to UberEats / Uber, it makes me wonder whether they are scam of some sort as well.
        • curryst 6y ago
          There are 2 separate issues that you're conflating. The first is whether UberCheats infringes on Ubers trademark. I agree with you, this strikes me as infringement. The second issue is who decides whether it's infringing or not. I don't think Google should be calling that, the takedown should come from a court with the authority to make such orders. Basically Google is turning into Team America: World Police, and I don't like that route. It's not that I think they should keep the name, it's just scary that once again, Google has completely fucked up someone's life without any kind of legal order.
          • random5634 6y ago
            For the trademark infringement (UberEats vs UberCheats etc), if they don't think google or the person complaining (Uber) has it right, they can still absolutely go to court, and get a declaratory judgement. That's what they should do - they make lots of (what look like total BS) claims that they don't infringe, go to court and you will get an order that UberCheats does not sound similar, look similar or involve same product area (on demand delivery / transport) as UberEats etc and that they have the right to use the name and are not trading on the UberEats and other Uber product brand recognition. Good luck with that case by the way. The platforms don't have a lot of confidence in the timeliness of claim resolution through the court process, they have 10's to 100's of thousands of issues to address weekly. Trademark ripoff apps, apps ripping off copyright, content issues (child abuse / apps that promote violence). Waiting for legal orders on any of this would be time consuming and costly. So we are clear, courts take YEARS to resolve these things. They also operate globally. Developers in Israel and Egypt and the EU and the US. Cross border legal enforcement through the courts is very hard at scale currently and there are political differences as well. My own sense, if govt provided more timely, effective and accurate relief and determinations, folks would be more comfortable with court involvement. But at least on commercial side, given both the politization of courts (which makes rulings both unpredictable and highly variable based on judges involved) and the delays in the process there is just an understanding that to maintain functional ecosystems the platform owners need to take a more hands on approach. I'm in another field where basically everything has gone to arbitration agreements without exception because the court process is just broken for resolutions on larger scales. Companies are getting very careful on this. "If a subscriber/enrollee doesn't agree to arbitration, will Kaiser Permanente decline enrollment? A: Yes. If a subscriber/enrollee does not agree to arbitration, they (and their dependents) will NOT be able to enroll in a Kaiser Permanente plan." So this is extending to nonprofits as well. What's really interesting is business to business (ie, both parties roughly similar negotiating authority) also going to arbitration. The big issue on the business side though is arbs tend to split awards (it's a safe call) rather than just destroying one person even if the case calls for that, and there is no appeal (which business doesn't like, they want at least one other crack at the apple).
  • Klwohu 6y ago
    It's a risk any user of the major platforms takes when they participate in a walled garden ecosystem.
• jedberg 6y ago
  There's a good chance that this was just a lawyer at Uber filing takedowns for any app with the name Uber in it related to ridesharing, regardless of what the app does.
• xtracto 6y ago
  Isn't Uber a German word meaning "over". Can you trademark a valid word?
  • Hydraulix989 6y ago
    There's precedents everywhere for this, as long as the wording meets the actual requirements listed in trademark law. In the past, unscrupulous people would prey on unintentional confusion by naming their upstart businesses similar to established competitors, for example. There was also rampant counterfeiting. You can still see this today in jurisdictions without strong trademark laws. This is what trademark law originally aimed to protect us consumers from. Personally, I am happy with doing my own due diligence (let the buyer beware) rather than enacting regulatory laws subject to abuse by heavy-hitters, like in this example. This, of course, is my own personal opinion.
    • LorenPechtel 6y ago
      I have no problem with trademark law being used against companies trying to pretend to be the big guy. But who would think "UberCheats" is something by "Uber"?? I see no possible confusion and that's the whole point of trademark law.
      • Hydraulix989 6y ago
        Yes, but how do you draw the line in a way that prevents one bad actor to claim they are in your latter safe bucket of soft-infringement? Without any stringent way of codifying it, there will only be inconsistent enforcement, and there will be people who manage to slip through the cracks. Uber has an UberEats already, maybe someone could think UberCheats are cheat codes or deals for UberEats? There is definitely room for confusion...
        • colejohnson66 6y ago
          The problem is that something like “are people confused” isn’t something that can be codified in the law. Try to codify an algorithm and people will game it. As such, the only solution is a judge.
• stefan_ 6y ago
  > My guess is that they use the ‘straight line’ distance rather than the actual distance traveled. My god, don't tell me they are still doing this? The incompetence knows no bounds. Enough time to make their own chat app but no one around to dig up Dijkstra.
  • giomasce 6y ago
    I suppose that's not just incompetence. I mean, it happens to be incompetent when incompetence lets you pay your workers less...
    • that_guy_iain 6y ago
      If that sort of error lasted more than a few days I doubt any court would believe it's a mistake. Uber has how many hundreds of engineers? And they can't figure out how to do routes? Last time I was in an Uber the driver was forced to take a specific route if I remember correct (it's been years. I hate Uber so much)
  • pmiller2 6y ago
    Eh, at the geographic scale Uber operates at, it's a smidge more complicated than just Dijkstra's algorithm. Not much, conceptually, but there are potential implementation issues that matter.
    • sep_field 6y ago
      implementation issues such as, wanting to maximize profits at the expense of workers.
      • pmiller2 6y ago
        That's an implementation issue with capitalism. I was referring to implementation of a service that provided accurate route distances for drivers.
  • Jommi 6y ago
• haltingproblem 6y ago
  I had never heard of UberCheats until now. Remember the Uber app actually routes the driver from pickup to pickup so they know exactly how much they have traveled. Seriously, Uber, "as the crow flies" instead of the actual distance traveled? This will I fear, quite happily, will unleash the Streisand effect on UberCheats. Uber bans UberCheats and founder savvily decides to fight it instead of relaunching under a new name. I predict he will end up with a seed round. Uber will end up with more reputation as being UberDark - as in we pick the dark pattern every time we can because why not.
  • Jommi 6y ago
    Why are you believing that part of the article? Trust me, Uber 100% routes using gmaps/their own maps hybrid and calculates distance from that. It's an IMMENSLY complex calculation that will never be the same and thus gets driver complains all the time. Then the support team (at least used to) kindly show what caused the discrepancy and potentially adjusts the payout. Source: Worked at and studied ridehailing apps for few years.
    • piva00 6y ago
      Is it really an immensely complex calculation? I worked with GIS for maps, fleet tracking, route optimisation, logistics and so on for quite a number of years. Yes, the traveling salesman problem is NP-hard and not completely solvable with current computation but... Approximations of it are actually quite feasible, and have been since way before I worked with GIS in 2005 as the platform we vendored had these features since late 90s, early 2000s. I can completely understand that the algorithm for driver selection/matching and calculations of possible different routes for those drivers between them and possible passengers can be quite complex, it also sounds a bit into the realm of the knapsack problem (weighing in all the different passengers and drivers to given an optimal set of matches) but I don't see necessarily how the route calculation/prediction with distance would be an immensely complex one. And I'm completely open to gain more knowledge in this area to understand it and prove my naive assumptions of the problem domain wrong, feel free to shoot me down.
      • 6y ago
• MikeDelta 6y ago
  Try doing this as a small developer defending his/her product against scammers on the marketplace.
• marcod 6y ago
  They should just relaunch it as ÜberCheats!
• naebother 6y ago
  I'm surprised there aren't more independent apps geared towards maximizing earning for drivers. Like it can't be that hard to create an artificial surge price if there's enough coordination between most regular drivers at popular spots (e.g. airports).
  • ardy42 6y ago
    > I'm surprised there aren't more independent apps geared towards maximizing earning for drivers. Like it can't be that hard to create an artificial surge price if there's enough coordination between most regular drivers at popular spots (e.g. airports). Wouldn't an app be relatively easy for Uber to monitor and subvert? Drivers are already sometimes coordinating to create surge pricing, and they don't need an app to do it: https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/uber-lyft-drivers-artificial-surge-pricing-reagan-national-washington-arlington-drive-united.html https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/uber-lyft-drivers-artificia...: > While a reporter looked on, a group of about 50 drivers for both Lyft and Uber sat at their waiting area at Reagan National waiting while two drivers watched online to see when planes were about to land. After a plane lands, a lot of passengers request rideshare rides, which pushes demand up to begin with. But the drivers further tipped the imbalance between demand and supply by simultaneously turning off their apps five minutes before landing. Then two drivers stood at opposite ends of the waiting area, looking at the Uber and Lyft pricing for fares from the airport. They kept checking fares and watching the surge price increase until the fares were $13 higher than normal. At that point, they told the other drivers to turn their apps back on so they could begin accepting rides. The whole operation took less than two minutes, but now arriving passengers would pay around $13 more to reach their destinations.
    • bradleyjg 6y ago
      I’m fairly certain this happened to me a couple of weeks ago at LAX. Everyone in the waiting area kept on having a low fare pop up, accept it, and then have uber try to substitute it for a much higher fare before ultimately saying there were no drivers available.
    • naebother 6y ago
      I guess, to some extent. If Uber figures out that drivers are currently participating in a mini-strike, they could just not increase the fare. But then it's just a matter of who's willing to wait it out longer. I just think drivers have a better chance at getting Uber to capitulate eventually and increase the fare if drivers act collectively. And it's good that drivers are trying to do this organically, but I think there's value in doing this systematically and an easy to use anonymous way. Like if I wanted to participate in this at the Regan National, where do I sign up? Probably some group chat somewhere that I first have to chat-up one of the other drivers for. I guess I want someone to make an app to monetize and gamify collective bargaining. If you want to skim 1-2% off the top or show me some dumb ads, sure. As long as you can squeeze that sweet VC lemon (or the rider) and make me more in the processes, it's all good.
• NearAP 6y ago
  This is not surprising. Using 'Uber' in the name is trying to build off their brand which big companies will not allow. This is the reason why companies that allow you to build apps for their platform will have rules that say - you should not include the company name in your App. Someone posted here on Hacker News how Android sued him for his app for making use of the name 'droid' (i think) or something close to the logo (can't remember the exact details and can't find the post)
  • calciphus 6y ago
    Verizon owns the "Droid" trademark and is very litigious. Wouldn't be surprised if they got a nastygram from Verizon lawyers.
    • alasdair_ 6y ago
      Lucasfilm actually owns the "Droid" trademark and licenses it to Verizon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_(Star_Wars)#Trademark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_(Star_Wars)#Trademark
    • jmchuster 6y ago
      No, that would be Lucasfilm. Was definitely interesting watching their commercials, and going, isn't that owned by Star Wars, oh there it says it at the bottom of the screen.
  • overlordalex 6y ago
    This reminds of the third party Reddit app that started life as "Reddit is Fun", which had to be re-branded to "RiF" once Reddit itself started developing its own app. However apparently that was still unacceptable and it's currently named "rif is fun", and as much I like recursive acronyms it's a little ridiculous
    • joncrane 6y ago
      It's the best reddit app for Android, BTW.
    • deleted 6y ago
• littledot5566 6y ago
  To be fair to Google & Uber, this rule is well-known amongst Android developers. You can only use names like "X for Brand", while "BrandX" "Brand X" "X Brand" can result in take-downs. The author can simply rename the app to "Cheats for Uber" and the app should pass.
  • colejohnson66 6y ago
    To be fair (also), UberCheats reads like something Uber is doing ("Uber cheats" their drivers out of money, for example). "Cheats for Uber" sounds like something you're doing to deprive Uber of something ("Cheats for Overwatch" sounds like an aimbot (if it existed)). You do have a valid point about "XBrand" or "BrandX" vs "X for Brand".
• omega3 6y ago
  Are the algorithms to calculate the price different in different countries? I used to take uber frequently between two points and in the instances where the driver was obviously cheating (ignoring navigation, taking busy roads, wrong turns, roundabout ways) the price I was paying was always higher. Which tells me the algo must have been taking into account actual distance/time travelled.
  • colejohnson66 6y ago
    My experience seems to be that you're charged for distance traveled, time, or something related (I've taken the same start/end points a few times to see that longer routes tend to cost more). But this extension seems to imply Uber pays based on "as the crow flies". If that is what they do (charge for traveled, pay for straight line), that's absolutely despicable.