Comment by jjp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jjp | Hacker News Reader

The TFL press release summarises the points on why the licence is not being renewed - https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2017/septem...

  TfL considers that Uber's approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility in relation to a number of issues which have potential public safety and security implications. These include:

  Its approach to reporting serious criminal offences.
  Its approach to how medical certificates are obtained.
  Its approach to how Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks are obtained.
  Its approach to explaining the use of Greyball in London - software that could be used to block regulatory bodies from gaining full access to the app and prevent officials from undertaking regulatory or law enforcement duties.

Can you quote with ">" instead? We can't read your comment fully.

EDIT: Here is the quote:

> TfL considers that Uber's approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility in relation to a number of issues which have potential public safety and security implications. These include:

> Its approach to reporting serious criminal offences.

> Its approach to how medical certificates are obtained.

> Its approach to how Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks are obtained.

> Its approach to explaining the use of Greyball in London - software that could be used to block regulatory bodies from gaining full access to the app and prevent officials from undertaking regulatory or law enforcement duties.

I'm quite certain that the last one is the important point. All the others can easily be fixed. But that the company had a program to avoid regulation should be enough to ban it. Unless they do a full code audit, there's no way to know if they still use these techniques.

Interestingly they claimed that technology is to defend themselves against fraudulent activity (fake accounts, competitors, sting operations).

From what I understand, it works by marking accounts as fake (using credit card lookups etc) and then showing them fake cars that never pick them up.

Imagine being falsely flagged by that system and just always having a terrible time getting a cab and not knowing why!

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