Just when it seemed it couldn’t get any worse for Uber, the taxi-hail app finds itself in the middle of a spying scandal.
Reports that Uber employees have tracked riders’ whereabouts without their permission — and for seemingly no good reason — has users rethinking their relationship with the $17 billion startup.
Among those on edge are deep-pocketed Wall Streeters who are concerned about protecting their mega-billion dollar deals — and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)
Bankers — and the public at large — don’t want snooping Uber execs looking in on their travel habits.
But that is just what happened when Uber’s New York general manager, Josh Mohrer, allegedly tracked a BuzzFeed reporter’s whereabouts earlier this month, BuzzFeed said.
Uber is investigating the allegation, it revealed late Tuesday.
Mohrer — known for blasting critics, including drivers, on Twitter — reportedly met with a BuzzFeed reporter outside of the company’s Long Island City, Queens, offices in early November.
“There you are,” BuzzFeed said he told her. “I was tracking you.”
Uber spokesman Taylor Bennett didn’t return a request for comment but the company, in a blog post, said that it has “a strict policy prohibiting all employees at every level from accessing a rider or driver’s data,” except for “a limited set of legitimate business purposes.”
It’s not the first time that Uber has been accused of spying on riders. Entrepreneur Peter Sims said he no longer uses the app after learning that Uber shared his whereabouts with strangers at a launch party.
“I’m shocked at how lax they have been,” said Clifford Press, co-founder of hedge fund Oliver Press Partners. The alleged spying “is going to be an issue for Wall Street in general, but also law firms — everybody,” Press said.
“The idea that you’re off doing a secret deal and someone is tracking your whereabouts — it’s insane,” the founder of a NYC private equity firm told The Post.
Franken, chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law, blasted Uber on Wednesday via a three-page query about its privacy practices.
Uber’s battle to ease customer concerns on spying is the second scandal to smack co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick this week.
Users have been deleting the app in droves after it emerged that a high-level executive suggested Uber — which has been the target of some harsh reviews in the media — spend $1 million to dig up dirt on reporters critical of the company.
In an odd twist, actor Ashton Kutcher, an Uber investor, took the side of the deep-pocketed company. “What’s so wrong about digging up dirt on shady journalist? he tweeted.