"Uber argues that it’s doing only what other technology companies regularly do.
That may be true but it only underlines why we need oversight mechanisms that
cover all of them. Reputational penalties have not been sufficient incentives to
encourage more responsible use of data and algorithms, especially because almost
all the big players engage in similar behavior — and Uber has just been rewarded by
its investors to the tune of $1.2 billion."

juan carlos

We Can’t Trust Uber

By ZEYNEP TUFEKCI and BRAYDEN KING

DEC. 7, 2014

UBER, the popular car-service app that allows you to hail a cab from your smartphone, shows your assigned car as a moving dot on a map as it makes its way toward you. It’s reassuring, especially as you wait on a rainy street corner.

Less reassuring, though, was the apparent threat from a senior vice president of Uber to spend “a million dollars” looking into the personal lives of journalists who wrote critically about Uber. The problem wasn’t just that a representative of a powerful corporation was contemplating opposition research on reporters; the problem was that Uber already had sensitive data on journalists who used it for rides.

Buzzfeed reported that one of Uber’s executives had already looked up without permission rides taken by one of its own journalists. And according to The Washington Post, the company was so lax about such sensitive data that it even allowed a job applicant to view people’s rides, including those of a family member of a prominent politician. (The app is popular with members of Congress, among others.)

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Continua qui: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/opinion/we-cant-trust-uber.html