Unroll.me 'heartbroken' after being caught selling user data to Uber

[FrodosNewPet]

Unroll.me 'heartbroken' after being caught selling user data to Uber

After reports emerged it sold customer email data to Uber, inbox clean-up service Unroll.me has issued a true Silicon Valley non-apology.

https://www.cnet.com/news/unroll-me-heartbroken-caught-selling-anonymised-email-data-uber-lyft/

by Claire Reilly | April 24, 2017 1:22 AM PDT

You know what they say: If you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

Now some are realising the price they paid for using free inbox clean-up service Unroll.me, after the company opened up about its practice of selling users' email data.

Unroll.me promises to organise your inbox by sorting subscription emails and letting you unsubscribe from the ones you don't want. But according to reports, Unroll.me also tracked emailed receipts sent by the ridesharing company Lyft, and sold them to Uber, Lyft's biggest competitor.

The revelation came in an excoriating report in The New York Times on Uber's attempts to succeed in Silicon Valley, which also included secretly identifying and tagging iPhone users, even after the app had been deleted from the users' phones. (In a statement Uber said, "We absolutely do not track individual users or their location if they've deleted the app," but the company did not comment on the Unroll.me issue.)

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[Warren DeMontague]

1. when can we go back to the old days, you know--- when it was nearly impossible to get a cab?

boy, those days were GREAT!

[FrodosNewPet]

2. As a former cabbie and dispatcher, I agree destroying the traditional taxi monopoly is a noble goal

To that end, Uber should be free from criticism and allowed to do whatever it deems necessary and desirable to that end?

Not sure where you are coming from on this.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Uber sucks.

But Uber, and these other uber-like companies didn't arise from nowhere- they responded to a real need.

And the traditional taxi companies had a long time to fix a broken system, but they didn't because it was a great gravy train.

Where I'm coming from is, yes Uber deserves criticism for a whole host of things, but the fundamental changes and concepts here I believe are valid and, having experienced the way things used to be, necessary.

[FrodosNewPet]

4. Part of the problem is the nature of point-to-point transportation

Very rarely do you have the right number of vehicles on the road.

If you have too many, people are sitting around, waiting for runs, not making any money.

If you don't have enough, then passengers are stuck with slow or no service.

Uber is falling prey to that same problem. They put too many cars on the road to provide the rapid service that people want. Drivers go broke, get frustrated, and quit. Or they cannot make the payments, and lose their vehicle. So then, the next rush, there are not enough cars, the service goes into surge, and people get mad because the trip that used to be half the price of a traditional cab is now double the price of taxis.

Many Uber riders are complaining that the cars are getting dirtier, more beat up, mechanically unsound. The drivers are becoming "cherry pickers" - calling the pax to find out destinations, then feigning car trouble or just outright refusing the run.

No matter who does what, it is impossible to provide 100% quality service in the passenger transportation business.