Al Franken Questions Uber Over Privacy

Glen Stubbe/ZUMA

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Minnesota Sen. Al Franken has taken a keen interest in tech policy since coming to Congress. As chairman of a Senate subcommittee that focuses on privacy, technology, and the law, Franken has been one of the more vocal advocates for net neutrality, fought against a proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner, and wondered about the privacy implications of fingerprint scanners on iPhones.

Now Franken has set his sights on Uber, an on-demand car service that uses smartphone technology to match passengers who need rides with available drivers. On Wednesday, Franken wrote a letter to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick posing a series of questions about how the company handles its users’ information and how it plans to treat journalists.

Franken cited a recent Buzzfeed report that a high-level Uber executive had mooted hiring opposition researchers to investigate the personal lives of journalists who have written negatively about Uber. And he sounded particular alarm about the lack of transparency in Uber’s privacy policy, given that the company has been accused of tracking the data and routes of specific riders. “This raises serious concerns for me about the scope, transparency, and enforceability of Uber’s policies,” Franken wrote.

The senator posed ten questions to Uber’s CEO, asking how the company plans to treat journalists and how it uses and stores geolocation data. He also requested more information about the company’s so-called “God view,” which allows employees to track the whereabouts of any user who has ordered a car. Franken asked the company to respond by December 15.

Read Franken’s letter here:

 

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We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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