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I have to say, that would be interesting, as my conversations are not usually relevant to the readers of bloomberg. I might not be happy about it, but I'm not sure that a law was broken or that I would have any recourse...

Nobody is saying a law was broken.

That doesn't make it right. Clearly you would not be happy about it either.

I think the interesting part of this story is not Kalanick's character based on the video, but rather the business decisions Uber made and how that has impacted their drivers.

It appears Uber has benefited from people investing in fancy cars. If it was their business plan to mislead people into doing that and then force them to take Uber X rides, then that is wrong, though not illegal.

Whether I would be happy about it or not does not make it right either. My unpopular opinion is that this video is in the public interest and that matters more than whether or not the CEO of Uber is happy about it or feels like their privacy was violated.

I don't support the idea that our culture would be better off by sharing more videos of each other when we did not expect we'd be speaking to the entire world.

It's why we don't get to see Trump's or Congress' tax returns without some kind of court case.

If they're forced to do it by law, it will be forced upon you too, and boom, everyone knows all your financials.

We can decide what we want to add to our culture. Secret videos don't need to be part of it.

Another unpopular opinion here: I think people in power should be held to a higher standard than lowly peons like me.

Imagine yourself as the driver. If the video had never been published, he would never have even gotten an apology from Kalanick. I sympathise with those who don't have the kind of power that the CEO of of Uber does. He is a serf in the hellish gig economy that Kalanick has made himself a billionaire many times over. This is the most meaningful political impact he will probably ever make in his life. Kalanick, meanwhile, will probably be okay, even if this leads to a chain of events where he is fired.

I want to choose a kind of culture where the working class are not so powerless against the rich. Just because one thinks it should be the law for the president to release their tax returns, doesn't mean that they think every single person should be subject to such an invasion of privacy for no reason.

News and paparazzi are kind of an unfortunate consequence of being a public figure. You're not in a private place in someone else's car...

I'm not sure you're right, legally speaking. At the very least it's a grey area. I certainly have the "reasonable expectation of privacy" (the legal test) in a hotel room that I don't own - a hired car doesn't seem that different to me. When you see an actor get into a car to avoid the paparazzi - they rarely own the car, and reasonably expect the driver not to film them and upload to TMZ or something. (IANAL, TINLA)

Uber cars aren't technically owned by a business like a hotel is though. If you stay the night at my house, there's a DVR system in some of the rooms. Deal with it.

Edit: Also, you probably are being filmed elsewhere in any major hotel (lobby, halls, etc). And I've seen plenty of that footage end up on TV.

Again though, you're not applying the proper legal test. The law isn't "who owns the property you're on" or "is the property owned by a business or individual," it's "do you have the 'reasonable expectation of privacy' on that property?" The former may factor into the latter, but it's not as cut-and-dried as your comments would make it seem.

edit: here's some precedent that may suggest you do have expectation of privacy as a passenger in someone else's car, though the scenario is different http://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...

Technically most hotels don't own their buildings either...

There's also another person there. In public you're supposed to find a secluded spot, not sure how much privacy you can expect in that situation.

Uber's position is that its ride sharing, and that's why the drivers are employees. Arguing that they have a reasonable expectation of privacy now that it would benefit Travis is just arguing out of both sides of the mouth.

Uber isn't even a public company. How did he become a public figure?

I think its unfair to say that simply by doing business with the general public, every CEO becomes a public figure.

If my character and ethics were newsworthy over the recent term, I'd hope to be prepared for it. Other celebrities are.

"Character is what you do when you think nobody will find out."

If I happened to be CEO of a ~ $60 billion company, you're damned right that I'd be okay with Bloomberg publishing a video that brought both my character and competence into question.

There is no such thing as privacy when you get to be that big. And frankly, any leader competent enough to run a business that big should already know that.

Exactly, even if there was no video, the driver could have written a viral medium or Facebook post and quoted his words. A conversation with one of your "employees" is not private!