A letter written by Senator Al Franken and addressed to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick expresses concern over the company’s actions over the last few days and asks for them to address concerns surrounding privacy.
Franken expresses concern that the privacy policies on the Uber website do “not match or support what [Uber] has stated in the wake of Mr. Michael’s reported statements” which raises concerns.
He continues on to request that Kalanick address ten questions, such as who has access inside the company to the “god view” tool that was used to track journalists, whether any disciplinary action was taken against the Uber executive that made the statements and if there are any limits in place on what data is collected.
Franken requests a response from Kalanick by December 15, 2014. The fact that a senator is weighing in on this shows the magnitude of the issue, despite Uber’s attempts to make it go away. We’ve embedded the full letter at the end of this post.
The Next Web’s CEO, Boris, wrote this morning that he believes Uber’s actions to dig up dirt on journalists weren’t out of line. Our own reporter, Roberto Baldwin, then wrote a retort pointing out that he is “wrong, wrong, wrong.”
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