Why You Might Not Want to Use Uber

You know those privacy policies that Internet services have? The ones where they say they can use your data however they like, but they promise they'll never do anything bad? But somehow spammers always get your email address and fill your inbox with all kinds of useless junk?

Uber, the Internet taxi company masquerading as a "ride sharing service" in an attempt to circumvent local laws and regularions, also has a policy:

The company’s privacy policy indicates it is saving some details of drivers’ trips, as well as customers’ email and home addresses and phone numbers, among other records. Most of that information helps Uber provide its on-demand car service. But the policy also vaguely says it might use information “for internal business purposes” — a catchall, of sorts, that might grant the company great legal latitude.

“The privacy policy has lots of contradictions in it. In some places they say, ‘We will only use your location data to deliver transportation to you’ — and in other places, they say, ‘Actually, we’ll use your location data to deliver ads and for other business purposes,’” said Alvaro Bedoya, the executive director of Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology.

Uber is not only watching everywhere you go, but they as a company are also engaging in prurient speculation about what you're doing.

Uber is not only watching everywhere you go, but they as a company are also engaging in prurient speculation about what you're doing. They even wrote a bragging blog post about "Rides of Glory," which is their term for people who use Uber for one-night stands. Astonishingly, this post has been up on Uber for two years and they still are not embarrassed enough to take it down.

But instead of just selling your email address to spammers, Uber appears willing to use that data against its customers: journalists who covered the company's unsavory activities, according to a recording made of one of Uber's execs:

Emil Michael, the company's senior vice president of business, said at a dinner in New York last week that the company should consider hiring a team of researchers to "dig up dirt on its critics in the media," according to a BuzzFeed report.

Michael said the company could spend a million dollars to hire four top "oppositional researchers" and four journalists to delve into the personal lives of journalists and their families. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was also present at the dinner -- along with VIPs from both the entertainment and media industries.

If they talk so blithely about doing this to reporters, I wonder how many lawmakers and high-profile businessman would trust Uber with the secrets of their comings and goings?

Even if Uber doesn't intentionally use your data against you, Uber is a big name and a big target for hackers: every transaction you conduct with Uber is stored on the Internet. It's one-stop shopping for the Russian gangs who've broken into Target, Home Depot and several banks: if Uber's programmers are as bumbling as Michael, its VP of business, the data on every Uber customer could already be in the hands of the bad guys.

If you use a local taxi service the nerds in Uber's data center aren't going to giggle about your late night trips.

Local mom and pop taxi services will get you a lot more privacy. Most them have no Internet presence and their customers are therefore immune to hackers. They don't keep your financial data or a record of your comings and goings online, like Uber does in order to charge you and "improve your service." If you pay your cabbie in cash, they don't even have your credit card number. The driver might record your trip in a handwritten logbook, but it's probably never going to be entered into a computer system. If you use a local taxi service the nerds in Uber's data center aren't going to giggle about your late night trips.

Uber was in the news earlier this year when its staffers scheduled thousands of rides with competitors Gett and Lyft, then canceled the fake rides and screwed the Lyft drivers out of the fares.

And there are other reasons not to use Uber. Since the company takes a 20-25% cut out of every ride, money that previously would have stayed in your local economy is going off to California. Uber is constantly angering its drivers by unilaterally lowering fares. Uber may be a $17 billion dollar company, but its drivers are making less than minimum wage.

Add to this the flouting of local laws and regulations in hundreds of cities and towns that local companies have to abide by, and it's clear that Uber has in a few short years become as arrogant and corrupt as any mobbed-up cab company in the country.

Come to think of it, it's not surprising that a company that has the gall to name itself Uber is so morally and ethically reprehensible.

The only thing über about Uber is their ego.