Uber allegedly hacked rivals, bribed Officials

SAN FRANCISCO: A former Uber employee has alleged that a special division within the global ride-hailing app was responsible for acts of corporate espionage, the theft of trade secrets, the bribery of foreign officials and several means of unlawful surveillance. The allegations against Uber were part of a latter dubbed as “Jacobs letter” that was written by the attorney for Richard Jacobs who previously worked as Uber’s manager of global intelligence before being fired in April this year, TechCrunch reported on Saturday. Jacobs alleged that Uber’s secretive Strategic Services Group (SSG) “frequently engaged in fraud and theft, and employed third-party vendors to obtain unauthorised data or information.” According to The Verge, he also accused Uber security officers of “hacking” and “destruction of evidence related to eavesdropping against opposition groups.” The letter is part of the legal battle between Uber and Alphabet’s selfdriving unit Waymo over self-driving technology. The letter alleged that some of the information gathered was relayed to then-CEO Travis Kalanick, the report added. “While we haven’t substantiated all the claims in this letter-and, importantly, any related to Waymo-our new leadership has made clear that going forward we will compete honestly and fairly, on the strength of our ideas and technology,” an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch.