How Uber secretly investigated its legal foes and got caught
theverge.com
theverge.com
I've never used them* but based on their reputation and depending on circumstances I think my preference order would be Lyft, taxi, public transportation, livery service, call friends to ask a favor, Uber, walk - and "walk" might move up the list depending on the weather and distance.
* The one time I tried to actually use Uber they locked my account because the card on file was declined - it'd been replaced after the Home Depot breach. Their unlock policy appeared to be something like "send us a picture of the card," which wasn't going to happen since it had been shredded months before. The early press about their business practices had already started, so I wasn't that interested in pursuing unlocking either.
I have, I continue to use them (anyone has better service and is less corrupt than the taxi cartels), and I still generally agree.
Taxis also never bothered upping their convenience game, because they thought they didn't have to.
Side story: In Baltimore this happened to me. I got into a taxi and the driver starts asking me tons of questions. I'm politely answering and having conversation but I'm clearly not paying attention to the meter. We drove for 7-10 mins, 2-3 miles or so, and upon arriving to my destination is when I realized the cost was $30.
I did mention Manila. And much of Thailand, and...well, Bali is pretty honest. Uber is a huge stress reliever in those places, where taxis can be outright dangerous! Forget about the US, I've been stuck at MNL at 2 AM in the morning and would kill for an Uber app (if it existed at the time).
But I totally agree with your point. A convenient feedback mechanism is quite nice, along with a GPS based meter that shows the route taken.
According to the article, it's common to do due diligence on plaintiffs, especially when they do something weird like name the CEO personally in the lawsuit. But it's obvious the research firm Uber contracted did more than they asked.
TLDR: 'Uber communicated with Ergo largely over encrypted channels. Henley [the Uber executive that hired Ergo] explained in one email that this was necessary to "avoid potential discovery issues."'
Any reasonable person with knowledge of litigation knows that the only reason you attempt to hide things from discovery is that they are incriminating, aggravating (in the legal sense) and/or damning. "Common" due diligence on plaintiffs would never need to be hidden from discovery. In fact, quite the opposite: negative information turned up in due diligence would be paraded in front of the opposing side as a negotiating tactic, and you (almost always) can't selectively disclose which information you turn over in discovery.
Furthermore, if you intend information to remain confidential in litigation, you have your attorney do it so it can be classified as privileged attorney-client work product. But the inconvenient limitation is that lawyers are bound by legal ethics, so the fact that this investigation wasn't conducted by the firm's attorneys (and was, apparently, hidden from them) suggests it was known to cross ethical lines.
And naming CEO's in lawsuits isn't "weird" - it's an extremely vanilla legal tactic. You name anyone and everyone and let the opposing counsel argue for more limited scope. Leaning on that as an excuse is transparently absurd.
It's obvious to any reasonable third party that Uber intended to go beyond normal legal due diligence, and got caught.
> Any reasonable person with knowledge of litigation knows that the only reason you attempt to hide things from discovery is that they are incriminating, aggravating (in the legal sense) and/or damning.
I disagree with that. As a general rule of thumb, "only people who have done something wrong would care about privacy" is a frequently used truism which is actually quite false. In this particular case, reasonable people with knowledge of litigation know that there are many, many reasons to hide things from discovery. The most common is because "the lawyers haven't reviewed this and so we don't know whether it would be problematic or not -- 99% chance it isn't a problem, but we shouldn't take any chances". This is the main reason (at least in the US) why companies have data destruction policies that require all emails and documents past a certain age be automatically deleted (unless an explicit step is taken to retain them).
I agree with this. Strongly.
However, there are two important counterpoints here that don't apply in normal circumstances:
1. They were actively involved in litigation, which means normal information retention procedures were already out the window (or should have been). E.g. you can certainly do things like routinely delete business emails older than some specified age, but if you know those emails contain subject matter that is pertinent to active litigation you likely should not.
2. The encryption/destruction that occurred here weren't a "normal course of business" thing, but a response to the litigation. That gives a strong impression that it was willful and intended to evade laws and rules related to discovery.
This is an ignorant statement. Things you say can easily be taken out of context and manipulated. This is a common occurrence, which is why privacy matters.
Using non-written, non-permanent, non-recorded means of communication is something you don't have to submit in discovery. (Because it cannot be.)
That said, yes, it's just trivial to assume that Uber wanted more, however, it's also quite standard operating procedure that in these cases all the legal responsibility is on the contractor, unless someone can somehow produce evidence that points to someone at Uber expressly requesting this "extralegal" investigation. (Though that does not mean the contractor is off the hook, unless they cut a deal with the DA, yaddayadda.)
Yes. But taking action to evade discovery after litigation has become active is quite a bit different from choosing not to retain information that may or may not ever become subject to litigation.
I guess I should have said "the chat app ate my homework" is a valid excuse if you always use the homework-eating chat app. But if you start using the homework-eating chat app because you're intending to discuss active litigation, that's just getting too cute.
Let's be clear here: you don't have to delete or encrypt communications to protect it from discovery. Privileged attorney-client work product is always protected from discovery, whether it's in plain text, encrypted, written on paper, or whatever. But for some reason (I speculated on one) they chose not to do this work as attorney-client work product.
Joseph Heller, Catch-22
It generally covers detecting and mitigating fraud, cybercrime, hacktivists, espionage, and rogue insiders.
However, I don't think it's typical (or appropriate) that this person or their team would research lawsuit plaintiffs or conduct such an "offensive" action.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/19/uber-inve...
Simply put - using money to create legal power and abuse it in turn is how uber works.
The fact that their service is popular just helps in PR - people will rationalize egregiously shady behavior instead of condemning it.
As I see it the message from the article is "don't get caught". A sharp contrast from a few decades ago when "don't be evil" was considered a basic standard.
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/04/11/ending-s...
At that point they can just strongarm governments because it becomes politically expensive to ban them.
On the other side I am not keen to see a mafia replaced by another mafia. There has been multiple stories about Uber bullying competitors. And this. And Uber also seems to be very much minded to milk the customer to the last penny. Introduction of peak pricing, Uber charging a cancellation fee when the driver cancels the ride, etc.
I still receive spammy emails they continue to send. And Sendgrid is fully in bed with them.
Forwarded spam to Sendgrid and they said they will follow up with Uber (so apparently they are Uber's customer support at this point - great!) The spamming practice never changed or stopped despite Sendgrid telling me they will send my email to them (!!) to unsubscribe me from their list, when I didn't even subscribe in the first place.
As I received more Uber spam I kept updating Sendgrid ticked (zendesk). Eventually some 2 weeks later they closed it as "resolved" and never replied to my emails again. I still get Uber Spam from Sendgrid. Stay away from that piece of shit as long as you can!! (both Uber and Sendgrid)
PS. As of Uber, I copied all my emails and forwarded them to FCC. In short telephone conversation I was told I'm not the only one and as they have reached over 1,000 complaints in short period of time, they will be investigating both into Uber practices and also Sendgrid as an accomplice to their alleged crime.
They explained to me that they comply with Can Spam by... providing unsubscribe link. Nothing mentioned how I got on their list in the first place, on what their practice are. Clearly my email must have been scrapped from public sites, since I never did sign with them in the first place.
So yeah if they don't even know the rules of Can Spam, how the heck you expect them to follow the law?
I will have a short call with Attorney General in my State end of this week to see if I am a separate incident.
"Threat intelligence" has always been a bit shady and of questionable security value. CEOs just like to get handed an "intelligence portfolio" to feel big and powerful, regardless if it practically improves their security.
It doesn't end well (see also: Prenda Law)
[1] http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph-nader1965-1971...
Why didn't they just license the software to taxi companies?
What do HN readers think?
Then he has the gall to complain that the company he's trying to sue investigates him in an aggressive and possibly illegal manner.
I don't see there's a good guy here. AFAICT, both he and Uber are behaving in a fairly contemptible fashion.
For those here who support antitrust legislation (even in cases other than this one), this is worthwhile reading:
https://mises.org/library/antitrust-case-repeal
"Professor Armentano begins with the most rigorous and revealing account of the Microsoft antitrust battle to appear in print. He further discusses other recent cases, including Toys `R' Us, Staples, and Intel, as well as many historical cases. He covers nearly every conceivable rationale for antitrust, including price fixing, tie ins, vertical and horizontal mergers, and many more."
It's a bit old, but still highly relevant.