TechScape: Uber’s easy ride is over
A massive leak of confidential internal documents about Uber has cast new light on the strategies the cab-hailing company took to reach the top of its game. Goodbye “fake it till you make it”, hello “break it till you make it” – the rules, the law, and anything else that stands in your way.
From our lead story:
A leaked trove of confidential files has revealed the inside story of how the tech giant Uber flouted laws, duped police, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments during its aggressive global expansion.
The cache of files, which span 2013 to 2017, includes more than 83,000 emails, iMessages and WhatsApp messages, including often frank and unvarnished communications between Kalanick and his top team of executives.
There is an awful lot here. There’s political wheeling and dealing, of course: Peter Mandelson helped Uber reach the Russian elite; Emmanuel Macron, then-economy minister, helped with the French. The former EU digital chief helped with the Dutch. Documents also suggest that George Osborne, meanwhile, “was a private supporter of the US company’s efforts to grow its business in the UK, just as the company simultaneously positioned itself to avoid future UK taxes.”
While it was buddying up with politicians, the company was also building infrastructure to avoid the legal ramifications of its launches – which often came several years before the company would eventually be permitted to operate. A “kill switch”, built into its systems, let the company lock out local offices from its corporate network, preventing secrets being seized in police raids.
And there’s also the fallout of its aggressive tactics. As protests against Uber raged around the world, the company’s own drivers were put in
Read more on theguardian.com
