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Refused to provide driver names to San Francisco city government

When the city of San Francisco demanded that Uber provide it with drivers’ names and contact information so the city could demand that drivers obtain business licenses and pay applicable fees, Uber claimed that disclosures would violate drivers’ right to privacy. In a June 2017 ruling, Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer disagreed, ruling that the city Treasurer and Tax Collector had legal authority to demand the information.  He said compliance would not be unduly burdensome, and that any drivers who wished to challenge license requirements could do so on their own.

Lyft provided the data to San Fransisco without litigation.

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Vehicle financing terms inferior to company marketing promises

The Federal Trade Commission flagged Uber providing drivers with financing terms inferior to what its marketing materials promised. The FTC said drivers received worse rates on average than consumers with similar credit scores would otherwise obtain. Uber further promised that its leases provided unlimited mileage, though there were actually mileage limits. Details in the FTC’s complaint.

Uber paid $20 million to settle these claims (along with claims about exaggerated annual and hourly earnings). The funds were used to provide refunds to affected drivers

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Recruited drivers with exaggerated earnings claims

The Federal Trade Commission flagged Uber exaggerating the yearly and hourly income drivers could make in certain cities. For example, Uber claimed on its site that uberX drivers’ annual median income was more than $90,000 in New York and more than $74,000 in San Francisco — but the FTC found that the actual medians were $61,000 and $53,000 respectively, and that less than 10 percent of all drivers in those cities earned the amounts Uber touted.

The FTC also alleged that Uber made false hourly earnings claims in job listings on Craigslist and elsewhere. In eighteen different cities where Uber advertised hourly earnings on Craigslist, fewer than 30% of drivers earned the promised amount. In some cities, as few as 10% of drivers earned the promised amount. Details in the FTC’s complaint.

Uber paid $20 million to settle these claims (along with claims about vehicle financing terms). The funds were used to provide refunds to affected drivers.

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3,000 cases in Miami against Uber drivers, totaling $3.2 million

The Miami Herald reports that Uber drivers have received more than 3,000 tickets and similar citations, totaling $3.2 million. One proposal would waive $1.4 million of that, though critics questioned why the fines should be reduced.

Police have also impounded at least 20 cars from Uber drivers.

Commissioner Dennis Moss said Uber “made a conscious decision to violate the rules” and should therefore pay the full penalty. Other critics noted Uber’s guidance to drivers about how to avoid getting caught by police.

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Obstructed government raids

Former Uber employee Samuel Spangenberg alleged that when regulators raided local Uber offices, Uber’s standard response included severing all network connections so that law enforcement could not access documents stored on Uber servers outside the premises.

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Fired in-house lawyers who questioned proposed document retention policy change

When Uber planned to change its document retention policy, two in-house attorneys expressed concern about the change and discussed their concerns with outside counsel. Uber fired them. Critics suggested that Uber sought to change the document retention policy in order to reduce materials available to litigation adversaries — and it seems the skeptical in-house attorneys thought that change, however beneficial to Uber’s business interests, was not permitted under legal rules requiring preserving documents relevant to existing disputes.

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Uber driver killed girl in crosswalk

On December 31, 2013, an Uber driver killed six-year-old Sophia Liu, who was walking in a crosswalk with her mother and brother.  At the time, the driver was between rides (with the Uber app open, hoping for a new request) but not actively serving a Uber passenger.  As a result, Uber denied that it was responsible or had to pay. Uber offered automatic insurance to all drivers, but the insurance offered no coverage in this circumstance.

In response to a lawsuit brought by Sophia’s family, Uber argued that it is merely a “technology company,” that it “did not cause this tragic accident.”

Without admitting that it was obliged to provide payment in this circumstance, Uber ultimately reached a confidential settlement with Sophia’s family.

Ang Jiang Liu Et Al v. Uber Technologies, Inc. Et Al. Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, Case No. CGC 14 536979.  Docket.

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Kalanick said Lyft’s casual drivers are “non-licensed” and “quite aggressive”

In 2013, when Uber focused on operations using properly-licensed black cars, CEO Travis Kalanick wrote a lengthy post assessing Lyft’s “ridesharing” using ordinary drivers:

Over the last year, new startups have sought to compete with Uber by offering transportation services without traditional commercial insurance or licensing. Uber refrained from participating in this technology sector — known as ridesharing — due to regulatory risk that ridesharing drivers may be subject to fines or criminal misdemeanors for participating in non-licensed transportation for compensation.

In most cities across the country, regulators have chosen not to enforce against non-licensed transportation providers using ridesharing apps. This course of non-action resulted in massive regulatory ambiguity leading to one-sided competition which Uber has not engaged in to its own disadvantage.

He continued:

[G]iven existing regulations, the Lyft/Sidecar approach is quite aggressive. The bet they are making is two-fold:
1. Uber, already a market leader, is too weary to enter the non-licensed market in the face of existing regulatory scrutiny.
2. Regulators for the most part will be unable to act or enforce in time to stop them before they have a critical mass of consumer support.

Kalanick specifically criticized incomplete enforcement and ambiguity that let some companies take a lead through aggressive interpretations rather than superiority on the merits:

[T]he lack of real clarity has created massive regulatory ambiguity. Without clear guidance or enforcement, this ambiguity has led to one-sided competition in which Uber has not engaged to its own disadvantage. It is this ambiguity which we are looking to address with Uber’s new policy on ridesharing.

After I posted an article quoting and discussing Kalanick’s post, Uber removed that document from its site. But Archive.org kept a copy. I also preserved a screenshot of the first screen of the document, a PDF of the full document, and a print-friendly PDF of the full document.

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