Morally speaking, I’m not sure who is in the right here. I believe in the right to protect your data, and the kill switches seem somewhat acceptable.. on the other hand, Uber is scum and has systematically destroyed the taxi business.
The US has always allowed a government to get a warrant to search personal records, including the ability to execute that warrant quickly, to prevent someone from destroying those records.
Companies should and do get into legal trouble for destroying records which are required for legal, regulatory, or lawsuit discovery purposes.
I don't think you rank corporate records higher than personal ones.
So I don't understand the moral ambiguity here.
Your moral point is that you think it's okay to block anyone else from accessing your data, but it's not okay to destroy it? Because that's the only way I can make sense of your comment.
Yes.
Why is that even a question?
What is the moral reason for saying that a company can store, use, and profit off of data, with a kill switch that {delete, hides, obscures, encrypts} that data when the government comes with a warrant, or when the courts have authorized discovery for a lawsuit?
Isn't that just rife for abuse? "Sorry, we don't have any records of dumping hexavalent chromium. The file deletion we did 10 second ago must have included them, if we had them." That would make for a very different Erin Brockovich movie.
More to the point, why would encryption be okay, while deletion is not?
Even more to the point, what judge (or jury!) would accept that difference?
They are not the only industry to have this done to them, takeaway/fastfood outlets are another blindingly obvious example.
Becoming the new middle man, meeting the customers needs goes back hundreds of years.