Uber's "sharing economy" is really the "taking economy"

U Washington robot-law scholar Ryan Calo (previously) writes, "Technology ethnographer Alex Rosenblat and I have a new paper arguing that the Uber Greyball program, whereby Uber serves a fake version of the app to police, is part of a broader pattern of participant manipulation. Uber uses Greyball-like tools against drivers and consumers as well." Read the rest

Uber uses data-mining to identify and block riders who may be cops, investigators or regulators

Greyball is Uber's codename for a program that tries to predict which new signups are secretly cops, regulators or investigators who could make trouble for the company, deployed in "Boston, Paris and Las Vegas, and in countries like Australia, China and South Korea" where the company was fighting with the authorities. Read the rest