REX TILLERSON DID CORRECTLY CALL THE PRESIDENT AS HE SAW HIM

 RIDE-SHARING SEEMS HERE TO STAY

 

Most of the younger generation in the U.S. has no experience with regular taxi’s

 

Today, almost everyone between the ages of 18 to 60 know about and assume that Uber & Lyft as a ride-share companies has been around forever.  Uber however, as an operation, only began as an idea back in 2008.  It was: “to offer on-demand taxi service in private cars”.   Of course, in most countries, they would be competing with a taxi industry that was heavily regulated in much of the world.  Country authorities dictated the colors of those competing taxi vehicles, the licensing and insurance rules for drivers, and how and when drivers worked.

But Uber had started and had become by 2015 into a bona fide, Silicon Valley start-up, rapidly multiplying in value, but one that early on, hemorrhaged money, requiring regular cash infusions from investors.  It faced fierce rivalry from companies such as Didi in China, Yandex in Russia, Ola in South Asia and eventually, Lyft in the United States.  Uber competed in part by luring customers to its app with steep discounts, and it recruited drivers with generous incentives.

Uber’s tactics were born out of more than just stubbornness.

Uber’s San Francisco-based chief executive, Travis Kalanick, had ordered the computer systems in Amsterdam cut off from Uber’s internal network, making data inaccessible to authorities as the authorities raided its European headquarters.

They even went to far as to develop a Kill Switch.  The item was initially referred to internally as “KS”.  When any outside operation tried to access or invade an Uber office,  the chief executive had instructed  his offices to “Please hit the Kill Switch ASAP,” Kalanick had emailed, ordering a subordinate to block the office laptops and other devices from Uber’s internal systems. “Access must be shut down in AMS,” referring to Amsterdam.  Amsterdam was the European headquarters for Uber and Travis Kalanick, had ordered the computer systems in Amsterdam cut off from Uber’s internal network, making data inaccessible to authorities as they raided its European headquarters. 

The Uber business model had relied on overcoming legal barriers to competing with a taxi industry that was heavily regulated in much of the world.

Confrontations also developed between country’s authorities and the company over its business practices. Uber sometimes would not comply with cease-and-desist orders if it believed immediate enforcement actions were unlikely, per two former employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters.

Today, the Uber spokesman Noah Edwardsen said: “I don’t have any comment on whether that was the case back then, but that’s certainly not how we would respond today.”

Back then, Kalanick had an overt hostility toward the taxi industry, which he dubbed “Big Taxi,” and the regulators, he argued, protected it from any competition.

Such confrontations had then forced questions about long-established taxi regulations into view.  Negative articles about arrests and other clashes, meanwhile, increased public awareness of the service, a former employee told The Washington Post.

On several occasions, including twice in Montreal in May 2015, authorities entered the company’s offices only to find devices such as laptops and tablets resetting at the same time.

The “kill switch” had helped thwart authorities by locking devices out of Uber’s internal systems. Although it was used internationally, the kill switch was controlled centrally by Uber’s San Francisco IT department and through another location in Denmark to protect local employees who might otherwise be accused of obstruction or forced to override it.  Uber used it to cut access to devices that could have been seized in raids, sometimes while authorities searched for evidence within Uber’s offices.

In this period, Uber was embarking on an aggressive expansion in countries such as Spain, France, the Netherlands and Belgium, many of which had previously outlawed paid transport in any private personal vehicles.

Uber officials eventually began hitting the Kill Switch as soon as they considered a raid imminent, the documents show. The action blocked the laptops from accessing information held on remote servers, former employees said, making the devices unable to retrieve even email.

Some employees engaged in stall tactics so the Kill Switch could be activated before police got their hands on their devices by, among other strategies, asking that the police or tax authorities wait together in a room without computers until local lawyers arrived, according to the documents and interviews with people familiar with the tactics.

“The procedure was, if you have law enforcement, you try to buy time by greeting them, and call San Francisco,” said one of Uber’s former lawyers in Europe, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the tactics. “Even if it was 2 a.m. in San Francisco, there were people who were supposed to react.”

Many companies use Kill Switches or other remote administration tools to cut off devices when employees are fired or if they lose them.  Inside Uber, workers were told the (KS) would also be used in case of “unexpected visitors,” a term that covered angry passengers or drivers as well as police or other authorities, according to former executives.

Uber was never charged criminally with obstruction of justice, and the company said it shut down machines mainly so that investigators did not see more than they were entitled to. When investigators later asked for specific documents, the company generally furnished them.

Some European legal experts said using a tool such as a “Kill Switch” is legal only before a government authority produces paperwork entitling them to look for specific documents. But afterward, cutting access could break national laws, they said.

“If a raid by a supervisor or economic investigator has already begun, and it has been made clear that copies of records are being requested, a company may no longer intervene by making them inaccessible,” said Brendan Newitt, of De Roos & Pen Lawyers in the Netherlands. “The same applies if regular investigators have already started, for example, a computer or network search to obtain the records.”

In France, a prosecutor involved in the initial investigation could add new charges based on a Kill Switch “if it turns out that it is not automated, that there is a human action leading to a disconnection and that there is a will to obstruct justice,” said Sophie Sontag Koenig, a teacher at Université Paris Nanterre with a doctorate in criminal law who specializes in technology issues.

In written responses to questions, Uber acknowledged that the company made numerous missteps during the time covered by an era when Kalanick, who was ousted by the board in 2017, led the company. “We have not and will not make excuses for past behavior that is clearly not in line with our present values,” said company senior vice president Jill Hazelbaker. “Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we’ve done over the last five years and what we will do in the years to come.”

Uber discussed or invoked the Kill Switch, more than a dozen times in at least six countries over a two-year span. References to Greyball (The internal designation for the Kill Switch) appear repeatedly, in countries including Denmark, Belgium and Germany.  The documents show that, in some cases, Uber’s legal department in San Francisco was aware of the use of the Kill Switch.

Uber employees sometimes expressed concern about the use of technological tools amid multiplying government investigations. In a text exchange in January 2016, officials in Europe discussed the pros and cons of building an alternative version of the Uber app.

Gore-Coty, a long-time employee, who is still an executive for Uber, said in a recent statement, “I was young and inexperienced and too often took direction from superiors with questionable ethics. While I believe just as deeply in Uber’s potential to create positive change as I did on day one, I regret some of the tactics used to get regulatory reform for ridesharing in the early days.”

One of the former Uber executives said, reflecting on that era, “It was like a religion inside the company that we had to beat taxi and we had to beat other ride-share competitors, whatever it cost.”

Hazelbaker, the Uber spokeswoman, said the company has not used Greyball since 2017 and now works cooperatively with authorities worldwide.

I have to say, as a user of Lyft, I approve of the concept of ride-sharing.  And I feel it will eventually become the standard over the typical taxi ride.  It allows many people to earn income that they may not have any experience at another job, but they do have a functioning automobile and a valid driver’s license.  It is also much less cost to the user than the regular taxi.

For that reason alone, the concept of ride-sharing is here to stay and the younger generation has already learned to use it via their cell phones.

Copyright G. Ater 2022