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posted by on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the you-don't-mess-around-with-Tim dept.

Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, visited Apple's headquarters in early 2015 to meet with Timothy D. Cook, who runs the iPhone maker. It was a session that Mr. Kalanick was dreading.

For months, Mr. Kalanick had pulled a fast one on Apple by directing his employees to help camouflage the ride-hailing app from Apple's engineers. The reason? So Apple would not find out that Uber had been secretly identifying and tagging iPhones even after its app had been deleted and the devices erased — a fraud detection maneuver that violated Apple's privacy guidelines.

[...] "So, I've heard you've been breaking some of our rules," Mr. Cook said in his calm, Southern tone. Stop the trickery, Mr. Cook then demanded, or Uber's app would be kicked out of Apple's App Store.

There is brazen, and then there is dumb.

If NYTimes is paywalled, try this, Business Insider


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  • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:54AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:54AM (#499855)

    Who sucked whose cock?

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:28AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:28AM (#499868)

    His whole "act first, get permission later" shtick seemed like just smart business at first. But damn, nigga! You keep doing that shit everywhere and pretty soon you will find yourself in jail.
    We really should have paid attention to the fact that he named the company after an ayn rand dystopian fantasy.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:35AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @06:35AM (#499870)

      Never trust a Nietzschean.

  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday April 26 2017, @07:14AM (3 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Wednesday April 26 2017, @07:14AM (#499881) Homepage

    You'd have thunk that all their App Store vetting policies would have caught that.

    Or does it have nothing to do with the App Store at all, because the app is gone and the device reset? And hence, none of their business anyway?

    Or do Apple just rely on people noticing that apps are doing creepy things and tracking their users, rather than actually finding out for themselves before they allow them on the app store?

    • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday April 26 2017, @08:25AM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday April 26 2017, @08:25AM (#499901) Journal

      Vetting:
      Is it rude?
      Will any faith-based types complain about it?
      Does it try to bypass the payments system?
      Does it do anything obviously criminal?

      Then, when someone complains, yank it, and tell everyone the problem wasn't related to the app or the vetting, but "something else".

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @10:59AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @10:59AM (#499930)

      If Uber was big enough, it could do practically anything, including murdering people during the day and Apple would not even mention that. The world has been corrupted by those with absolute power, and they are not Fascists. Its good that Uber does not have to be around for very long and that it does not provide value others can't.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Wednesday April 26 2017, @11:57AM

        by art guerrilla (3082) on Wednesday April 26 2017, @11:57AM (#499952)

        when 'we' as a society value profit uber alles, then what will be the end result ? ? ?
        99% of the people are worthless, and zillionaires are the best and most deserving on the planet...
        um, given the premise of profit uber alles, *what* other possible outcome can you expect ? ? ?

  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:44PM (1 child)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:44PM (#500204) Homepage Journal

    Basically, the Uber app noted the unique serial number of the device. Whether this was a useful thing to do or not, I can't say - the reason given doesn't really make much sense. But that's beside the point...

    My real question is: Why does Apple care?

    What's wrong with an app noticing which device it's installed on? Just as an example: I have Amazon's Kindle app installed on various devices, and these all show up on my "Devices" page at Amazon. I always assumed it made note of the IMEI, or the MAC address, or something, in order to tell the devices apart. I'm not seeing the problem here...

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @02:19AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27 2017, @02:19AM (#500475)

      What do you care if Apple cares? It's their app store, eh?!

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