Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber. Image credit: Wikimedia.
- It’s another account of Travis’ win-at-all-cost ethos. In 2015, Uber had a problem. Uber drivers in China were using stolen iPhones to set up dozens of accounts. They would then accept ride requests from these fake accounts to get incentives that Uber was giving out to drivers to take on more jobs.
- To fix this, however, required fingerprinting iPhones with a small piece of code, making the phone trackable even after its data was erased. However, Uber did it in a way that broke Apple’s rules.
- Uber CEO Travis Kalanick then told his engineers to “geofence” Apple’s head office in Cupertino. It would identify Apple engineers inspecting Uber’s app and manipulate the code to obscure the app’s fingerprinting ability. However, Apple’s engineers from outside its headquarters found out.
- Apple CEO Tim Cook called Travis into a meeting, gave him a tongue-lashing, and threatened to pull the app if Uber doesn’t comply with Apple’s policies. Travis gave in. Uber has clarified that it still uses fingerprinting today, but it was modified to meet Apple’s rules. Uber added that such tracking is a common industry practice.
Uber has issued this statement:
We absolutely do not track individual users or their location if they’ve deleted the app. As the New York Times story notes towards the very end, this is a typical way to prevent fraudsters from loading Uber onto a stolen phone, putting in a stolen credit card, taking an expensive ride and then wiping the phone—over and over again. Similar techniques are also used for detecting and blocking suspicious logins to protect our users’ accounts. Being able to recognize known bad actors when they try to get back onto our network is an important security measure for both Uber and our users.
Source: The New York Times, TechCrunch
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