Uber Emails: Exec Admits 'We're Not Legal', Another Says We're All 'Hackers'

Expand Josie_Desmarais | Editorial iStock/Getty Images Plus

The media has only just started digging up all the dirt buried in the so-called Uber files. Collected by The Guardian, the more than 124,000 confidential files allegedly show precisely how Uber's greed led to unethical decisions by executives during the global expansion of the ridesharing app.

Launching a series of reports from various outlets, The Guardian took a deep dive into the private communications that make up the majority of data breaches. This cache of 83,000 emails, iMessages and WhatsApp messages would reveal the 'inner story' of how Uber spent five years evading police while jeopardizing driver safety, attacking rivals, secretly wooing officials with financial incentives and brazenly ignoring laws in pursuit of market dominance.

Acknowledging the misdeeds that occurred between 2013 and 2017, all Uber has to say now is: let's leave the past behind.

"We have not and will not find excuses for past behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our current values," wrote Jill Hazelbaker, Uber's vice president of marketing and public affairs. , in a press release. "Instead, we're asking the public to judge us on what we've done in the past five years and what we'll do in the years to come."

Uber did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment, but its official position is that it has since corrected its course under new management. It's become a "different company", thanks to "90% of current Uber employees" who joined after CEO Dara Khosrowshahi came on board to right the ship in 2017 that it once waged war , and works seamlessly with officials to comply with thousands of regulations.

Despite Uber's wishes, the past is unlikely to be in the past, and the timing of the Uber file release is not ideal. Uber's public records account comes just as the tech company became profitable for the first time in its history.

The Guardian report is the first in a long series of an extensive global investigation of Uber by 180 journalists representing 40 media outlets. They have come together through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to share the treasure trove of data in hopes of telling the full story of Uber's dodgy past. This summer, expect to see more outrageous stories about Uber from outlets such as the BBC, The Washington Post and Le Monde.

What did Uber do?

The Guardian report shows how Uber staff and executives at the highest level (at the time under Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick) joked about the "other than legal status" of the business and openly discussed other questionable growth tactics.

Executive messages show how Uber allegedly strategically circumvented regulations in numerous countries, including Turkey, South Africa, Spain, Czech Republic, Sweden, France, Germany and Russia . "We are not legal in many countries, we should avoid making antagonistic statements," one executive warned in an email.

The posts also document how, at least a dozen times, when law enforcement in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, India, Hungary and Romania attempted raids on the offices of 'Uber to crack down on suspected illegal activity, Uber flipped a "kill switch" to prevent authorities from accessing its data systems. “We have officially become pirates,” another executive said in an email.

Kalanick's spokesperson told the Guardian that the "kill switch" software was not designed to help Uber evade authorities and "should never have been used to thwart legitimate regulatory action." The spokesperson also said that Uber stopped using the software in 2017, "when Khosrowshahi replaced Kalanick as CEO".

These tactics and other questionable protocols would have been sanctioned by Uber's legal department.

Stand out from the thousands of communications that...