Let's use this opportunity to clean out the stink. Including the fact that https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsmarr/ made Friendster (somewhat) popular by taking users registrations to hack into other user accounts.
Register your email and password here: Now we will use your registration details on the major sites to scrape all the data we can. Huge violation that Joseph Smarr has never answered for.
Can someone explain to me this dichotomy I see with the almost thermo-nuclear war when it comes to copyright protection of total drivel, but when it comes to fin-tech there is literally a flourishing industry of screen scraping typing companies and well-publicized plays like Mint and it's just like a big shrug? How are these companies able to mitigate through the banking companies TOU and such?
There are two main differences between screen-scraping content and screen-scraping transactions.
First is that copyright applies to written content (even short content such as tweets) and does not apply to factual data.
Second is that whatever rights may apply to the data, in the fintech scenario the users are scraping their own data.
So all kinds of copyright-specific laws, of which there are many, don't really apply in this case - and those are the laws that can easily get used against the service provider, unlike the possible ToS violation where the bank would have to against their own customers to enforce it.
> How are these companies able to mitigate through the banking companies TOU and such?
That's the trick, they just put all the liability on the user for security issues. Most banks say you must never give your credentials to a third party
So these startups and fin-tech companies just slap a few clauses in their T&Cs to say it's the users problem, not theirs.
Right, the driver didn't even know what the current Uber Black fair was...falsely claiming it was $2.75. Anyone would get annoyed when someone was telling you that you were essentially doing your job wrong but didn't even know the basic facts. In this case, these facts have a direct impact on the driver, which makes it all the more inane that he doesn't know them.
You seem really intent on defending Kalanick here so I will only post this as a reply to one of the several similar comments you've made regarding this:
> Travis is right on a technicality they did not lower Uber Black prices much if any. What they did instead was coerced Uber Black drivers to take Uber X request. Yes drivers can reject Uber X request, but if you reject a certain amount of Uber rides, they kick you off their system. Probably why the driver is complaining about going bankrupt, you need a luxury car to drive Uber Black, but if you're stuck picking Uber X fares you'll lose money.
You can't force contractors to take lower fare rides and then still claim the high ground of "we didn't lower your fares to X"
Are you certain that's the case? I was under the impression that, while this is true for the normal classes of Uber, the UberX fares for Uber Black drivers do not count against them if they reject the fare and UberX rides are only offered to them if there is not a current Uber Black fare available in the area.
That's fair enough and I see that point. My intent is not to defend Kalanick, but I do instinctually defend free markets. I think Uber and its drivers found itself in a situation with falling demand amidst rising competition.
Apropos of nothing all of the sites that talk about driving for Uber seem to recommend a recording setup both a dash cam and 'passenger cam' to provide backup in the event of a dispute or accident. I would be really surprised if he didn't expect this to be recorded at some level.
What makes you say that? The camera looks like it's in a place where you should be able to see it. Either way, I don't think a conversation I have in the back of someone else's car is private.
Because I find it incredibly hard to believe that he would engage like this if he believed there was a possibility of the conversation being made public. Sure, I could be wrong, but I am of the camp that the driver will find legal repercussions to this.
The problem with this is that it ignores the economic realities that went into the decision of Uber to lower fairs and assumes that their demand would have remained the same with or without doing it. Drivers would have not been happy with higher fairs if they couldn't, well...get a fair because of lowered demand.
I don't consider it a fair discussion when the driver falsely insists the fair is $2.75/mile, when it is $3.75/mile and continues to pound the theme when Kalanick had already given his explanation. What is the driver expecting? For Uber to go back and raise fairs on Uber Black?
1) He didn't "insist" it was $2.75. He mentioned the figure once.
2) When he quoted the figure, he said "and it's now what, $2.75?" clearly implying that he's not entirely sure about the current rate.
As I admitted, I am not privy to the details you refer to. For all we know, he merely misquoted or forgot. The point I'm making is it is just a discussion until Kalanick accuses the driver of playing victim when he has no right to do so. It's a matter of degrees.
So, let me get this straight. Uber has lowered the fair once on Uber Black to $3.75/mile, yet it seems that this driver was falsely insisting it was $2.75/mile. That would be frustrating to me too.
