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by lovealmond 3408 days ago
You are right, they have fucked up in the past. There will be some more fuck ups going forward. What i have seen is employees fiercely question each & everything in weekly town halls & there are positive steps that have been taken to make things better. I am optimistic that Uber will become much better going forward due to genuine efforts taken, question is can they do it fast enough to overcome the cultural debt they have accumulated during the hyper growth period.

Out of all, below happened after i joined for which i have some info. * Tracking users locations even after they get finish their ride (even more ominous when combined with their "rides of glory" privacy invasions) This is done for 5 minutes after the ride ends. This is required to fight fraud & ensure safety of riders. This can't be opt out because fraudsters will opt out & we still have fraud.

2 comments

"This is done for 5 minutes after the ride ends."

First of all: We only have Uber's word about that. A company not known as the most forthcoming when it comes to telling the truth.

"This is required to fight fraud & ensure safety of riders. This can't be opt out because fraudsters will opt out & we still have fraud."

This is about the most ludicrous reasoning I have heard in a long time. Fraud prevention doesn't really require that you spy on your customers. You're not dealing with Random Q Shmoe spontanously jumping into an Uber. All of those users need to create an account and provide a valid credit card in the process. User accounts can be locked immediately if fraud is suspected and even if fraud occurs the amount could be a couple 100 bucks, max.

Look, I understand that Uber needs to come up with some excuse to justify spying on their customers. But please tell your communications department they shall try to come up with something more plausible and to stop insulting the intelligence of the general public.

Lol, a couple 100 bucks max
1. If they really want to spy on customers why would they do it only for 5 mins after the trip ends? Why not do always like some of the other apps? I remember waze had it like that for a while.

2. Fraud at Uber's scale is not few 100 bucks.

I have decent critical reasoning skills not to agree blindly if the message came from communication department (it did not).

Those do not look like fuckups to me, i. e. things what happened accidentally. They look like the logical outcome of the very same culture and that thing does not change easily.