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Comment by Dangeranger | Hacker News Reader

Are there legal grounds here for a court decision against Uber based on this?

I suppose the answer depends on the nation or state in which this tactic was deployed.

This behavior doesn't surprise me based on their strategy of negotiation regarding regulation.

As mentioned above, there are plenty of jurisdictions where, if uber was illegal, this would be textbook obstruction of justice on the part of uber (because uber is deliberately obstructing the investigation of the drivers, who are committing a crime)

Some of the tactics could fall afoul of anti-discrimination laws - particularly, grabbing device numbers of cheap pre-paid phones could have an adverse impact on minorities.

Thinking about it a bit more, the next-level approach is to make sting activity look like african-american activity, then grab members of the african american community who now cannot hail an uber and sue under anti-discrimination measures.

Unfortunately, this is standard risk and antifraud, not even just Greyball; many many services I know of outright blacklist/block prepaid carriers, prepaid or reloadable debit cards, etc.

Several places I know of also outright block specific banks and BINs for abuse.

Not providing information to officials is one thing. Actively deceiving them with a map full of fake cars is a few steps further. I imagine quite a few countries' definitions of obstruction of justice could be met here

Speculating: possibly they may be safe if their TOS prohibits using the service to ticket drivers, which is not the intended purpose of the service. Courts have generally been kind to private company's TOS.

Certainly not. You can't protect yourself from a lawful investigation by writing "NO COPS ALLOWED" on your front door, either.