An Open Letter to Companies who Partner with Uber
Uber is a terrific service from a company with a terrible reputation. I had mixed feelings when one of my favorite iOS apps, Transit, announced they’re supporting Uber. Transit is just one of many apps using the new Uber API to improve their user experience.
This integration allows users to see predicted Uber arrival time along with buses and trains on a map with bicycle-sharing overlays.
This is a really great innovation for people without cars. The ability to easily compare many forms of transit in one glance is long overdue. But partnering with Uber comes at a cost: Uber restricts your company’s future partnerships, and your brand may be tarnished by Uber’s bad reputation.
Uber is led by sexist and misogynistic executives.
Uber blocks customer access to competitors’ drivers while simultaneously trying to recruit them.
Uber claims their drivers make lots of money:
UberX driver partners are small business entrepreneurs demonstrating across the country that being a driver is sustainable and profitable. For example, the median income on uberX is more than $90,000/year/driver in New York and more than $74,000/year/driver in San Francisco.
But a research piece by Slate magazine indicates this is extremely unlikely. Drivers have started protests and strike threats over compensation.
Finally, Uber plays fast and loose with your location and travel data with features like “God View” and a toothless privacy policy. Uber is also allowed to keep your data forever.
If you partner with Uber, you’re associating your brand with sexism, anticompetitive behavior, disrespect for user privacy, and… let’s call it “exaggerating” about compensation.
How to Fix It
Uber is convenient, smart, and well-made, and it’s really great that companies are eager to make it easier for customers to get around. If you’re working on an app with Uber support, or otherwise partnering with Uber, there are a few problems you can help overcome.
Uber’s treatment of women and workers is deeply concerning. There may be no solution to this aside from not using Uber at all. Consequently, these proposed solutions primarily relate to Uber’s privacy issues and anti-competitive practices.
Uber blocks apps from supporting their competition. One solution would be to give consumers a choice about which service to use. This is impossible right now, because Uber blocks their partners from using the Uber API if they support competing services. From the terms of service:
You may not use the Uber API in any manner that is competitive to Uber or the Uber Services, including in connection with any application, website or other product or service that also includes, features, endorses, or otherwise supports in any way a third party that provides services competitive to Uber’s products and services, as determined in our sole discretion.
As an Uber partner who cares about your customers, you should contact Uber and ask them to remove this stipulation.
Level the playing field. Integrate support for Lyft, Sidecar, and other competitors. While Lyft and Sidecar don’t have public APIs for arrival times yet, you can still have your app open Lyft or Sidecar. This shows support for paying drivers well: Lyft gives a higher percentage of pay to drivers, and Sidecar allows drivers to set their own rate.
Clearly indicate what data your app sends to Uber. Users are nervous about how Uber uses their data. Don’t lump Uber in with other third parties in your privacy policy. Be explicit about what data is sent to Uber and how often it’s sent. Will you send Uber your user’s IP address or other uniquely identifying info? Spell it out.
The Uber API allows your app to optionally send a unique customer_uuid to their service. Don’t send one, or consider sending a randomly generated one. If possible, hide your user’s IP address from Uber by routing API requests through another server.
Make it easy to opt out. Some of your users don’t want anything to do with Uber, and they might not want anything to do with you if you don’t allow them to opt out. Most apps with Uber integration offer no way to turn it off. Transit might:
But even here it’s not clear whether switching Uber off just hides the view, or whether it actually disables sending data to Uber.
Summary
Uber has grown quickly, and it’s a huge, but very immature, company. Users welcome the innovation, but don’t welcome the terrible things they do.
If you’re a company partnering with Uber, please publicly request that Uber:
- take steps to end their sexism
- pay their drivers fairly and be honest about how much drivers will profit
- stop their anti-competitive behavior, including blocking Lyft driver access and onerous Uber API terms
- improve their privacy policy by adding data expiration and the ability to opt out of data sharing
If you’re building Uber integration into your app, make sure you:
- tell your customers clearly what data you’re sending to Uber
- allow your customers to opt out (or even make it opt-in)
- obfuscate customer data you send to Uber’s API
If you’re a customer who uses a product with Uber integration, ask for these changes to be implemented or stop using these products altogether.
Here’s a list of Uber partners and their contact information.
@getaaron on Twitter.
