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from the I-don't-have-to-accept-your-business dept.
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Portland, Oregon, was one of the cities we mentioned where Uber employed the so-called "Greyball" tool. The city has now released a scathing report detailing that Uber evaded picking up 16 local officials for a ride before April 2015, when the service finally won approval by Portland regulators.
The Greyball software employs a dozen data points on a new user in a given market, including whether a rider's Uber app is opened repeatedly in or around municipal offices, which credit card is linked to the account, and any publicly available information about the new user on social media. If the data suggests the new user is a regulator in a market where Uber is not permitted, the company would present that user with false information about where Uber rides are. This includes showing ghost cars or no cars in the area.
The city concluded that, when Uber started operating in the city in December 2014 without Portland's authorization, the Greyball tool blocked 17 rider accounts. Sixteen of those were government employees. In all, Greyball denied 29 ride requests by city transportation enforcement officers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @06:50PM (2 children)
Do you remember back in 1998 when the US government began anti-trust proceedings against Microsoft? Their major crime was bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. Now, nearly 20 years, later we have them selling an operating system that is fundamentally spyware, leading an initiative for "secure boot" which means your hardware will only boot a Windows OS, are positioning themselves to force users to use store controlled by Microsoft to obtain their software, and more. Now not only does our government not care, they're in love with Microsoft.
What changed? They signed up for PRISM [wikipedia.org] and started "donating" an enormous amount of money to politicians, and regulators.
Most regulation in the US is sadly not really about consumer protections. The FCC, which you're certainly familiar with, is a relatively upstanding organization by the standards of US regulators. Did you know the FDA was headed by a Monsanto VP [wikipedia.org]? His groundbreaking case as a lobbyist was arguing that corporations ought be allowed to knowingly include at least a bit of carcinogenic compounds into our foodstuffs. But just "*de minimus.*" Did you know the position he held actually didn't exist before; Obama created it just for him. He coined it the "czar of foods."
These sort of things are typical in US regulation.
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Fortunately the law is still somewhat more on the side of the individual or business. Refusing to consent is specifically not and indication of guilt in the law. Innocent until proven guilty still means something. Companies can, in general, display whatever they want on their apps. And they can even do much worse than that. Facebook manipulated [nytimes.com] users' feeds in a literal attempt to create emotional distress in some 700,000 users. They did it just to see what would happen. Facebook faced no meaningful repercussions. They're certainly making sure to keep up on their "donations" as well. In any case, having users see different things with your app is not fraud - even if they are unaware that they're seeing different things.
Embracing regulators in the US is akin to inviting a group of thieves to your home, waiting for them to arrive, and then walking out and leaving. I mean surely they'd never do anything bad, because after all the law says they can't! 10 years ago I'd be stating exactly what you are. But as I grew older and started to participate in enterprise, I began to experience things first hand. What you think business and regulation is, and what it really is - are entirely different. Our nation is disgustingly corrupt. I do believe that do believe that government can be a force for good. However, our government is not such a force.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @10:50PM (1 child)
No... What changed was that they are not violating anti-trust laws with Windows 10:
1998: Microsoft was using an effective monopoly in one industry (operating systems) to artificially influence and gain control of another industry (web browsing).
2016: Microsoft is changing the behavior of their product. They are not entering a new market in any way.
No dark conspiracy about government surveillance is needed. They aren't violating the law, so no lawsuit against them is forthcoming.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:39AM
That's stretching the bounds of even cognitive dissonance.
Every example I even listed was them clearly using their current market dominance to try to gain an unfair advantage in other industries. Windows 10 S take this to an entirely new level where only apps from the Windows Store will even run, behavior they reportedly plan to make an auto opt-in for default Windows 10 which is one of the most absurdly anti-competitive actions in the software industry, perhaps ever. They're even engaging in shenanigans with browsers. Windows 10 is conspicuously unstable when running Chrome. Once the program crashes, Windows 10 automatically and without consent forces the user to begin using Edge. Or things such as "secure boot" which is literally intended to ensure it's impossible for the user to run non-Microsoft operating systems. And data harvesting is quick becoming the biggest industry in existence. And Microsoft has turned Windows 10 into the most widespread spyware in existence.
What they were sued for in 1998 is a joke compared to their actions of today.