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 The issue, which is being heard in a California administrative
court and whose outcome will not be known until next year, pits Uber
against the California Public Utilities Commission. The CPUC's
approval of new ride-sharing services last year carried the
condition that the companies make detailed data about their rides
available to the commission.
The regulator needs the data, which it plans to keep confidential,
to monitor the effect of new ride services on traffic flow, it says.
Competitors Lyft and Sidecar have made their statistics available to
the CPUC.
A lawyer for Uber, Rob Maguire, of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, said
the company had substantially complied with the request by handing
over information such as the Zip codes where Uber had picked up and
dropped off passengers.
The hearing comes as Uber faces setbacks to its legal status all
over the world, begging the question of what the company can do to
regain momentum.
Just this month, officials in Delhi banned the service after a
passenger accused an Uber driver of rape. Another rape allegation
surfaced Wednesday in Boston. Also this month, Uber drew bans in
France, Spain and the Netherlands.
On Thursday, Uber announced it would temporarily halt operations in
Portland, Oregon, where city officials had argued it was operating
illegally. It will pause service from Sunday night until April.
“Suddenly there’s an awakening to the fact that Uber has a
winner-take-all attitude,” said James McQuivey, an analyst at
Forrester Research, who said he thought the attitude was
contributing to actions that curb Uber’s activities around the
world. “It turns hearts and minds against them, which puts them on
dangerous ground.”
An Uber spokeswoman did immediately respond to a request for
comment.
In California, potential penalties outlined by the CPUC for Uber’s
failure to turn over data range from fines to a revocation of Uber’s
permit to operate in the state, though analysts say revocation is
unlikely.
Maguire, the Uber lawyer, argued that the data at issue - including
time and date of every ride requested in California, the miles
traveled, and the fare paid - was “highly confidential and sensitive
information.”
Uber’s refusal to turn over the numbers comes weeks after the
company itself came under fire for a privacy misstep: using a
feature it calls "God View" to track customers’ rides. It now says
it will curtail use of the feature.
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Taxi drivers say the withholding by Uber is just the latest in the
company’s flaunting of local laws in areas ranging from commercial
licenses to insurance. “Their business plan is not to be in
compliance with regulatory requirements,” said William Rouse,
president of the Taxicab Paratransit Association of California. “I
think we would all have a difficult time identifying one
jurisdiction anywhere in the world where they obeyed the letter of
the law.”
Uber has countered that the taxi industry is corrupt and does not
server customers efficiently.
In the decision in Portland, Oregon, affecting Uber, the city said
it would create a task force to craft regulations around ride
services. The task force will report findings by early April and the
city will drop a lawsuit to stop Uber from operating in Portland, a
city spokeswoman said.
Despite bad press in recent weeks, Uber remains the market leader in
the United States. Uber provides seven times the rides of competitor
Lyft, data from investment advisory firm FutureAdvisor shows.
In a blog post this week, Uber’s head of global safety, Philip
Cardenas, said that Uber had delivered 140 million rides this year
globally.
To restore credibility with detractors, Uber should stick with a
focus on safety, adding features such as the ability to record all
conversation during a ride, McQuivey said. The company should then
mount a campaign to publicize its benefits to a community, for
example highlighting drivers who are making more money than
previously thanks to driving for Uber, he added.
(Reporting by Sarah McBride; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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