Justice Department probes Uber tracking of Lyft drivers
DETROIT — The Justice Department in Manhattan is investigating whether Uber illegally used software to track drivers for Lyft, its main ride-hailing competitor, to gain an advantage in attracting and recruiting drivers, according to two people familiar with the probe.
The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York’s Southern District want to know if use of the software, which created fake customer accounts, broke any federal laws, said the people, who didn’t want to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
An Uber spokeswoman said Friday that it is cooperating in the probe and that use of the software has been discontinued. The U.S. Attorney’s Office would not comment on the case.
The investigation adds to mounting legal problems for Uber, including allegations of corporate espionage involving autonomous vehicle technology and at least one other federal investigation into use of software to thwart local government efforts to monitor its operations. Earlier this year, Uber’s board ousted co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick in a move to fix cultural problems within the company. Last month it replaced him with former Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who has inherited the legal troubles.
The latest probe apparently centers on software known inside Uber as “Hell.” A federal class-action lawsuit filed by a Lyft driver in San Francisco alleges that Uber developed the “spyware” that allowed it to pose as Lyft customers and gain access to its computer systems. The software let Uber access the location of up to eight Lyft drivers at one time and get their unique Lyft identification number. Uber then used that number to track the drivers’ locations, the lawsuit alleged.
Uber then matched the Lyft drivers’ identities with Uber internal records to find drivers working for both services, and gave those drivers incentives to work mainly for Uber “thereby reducing the supply of Lyft drivers, which resulted in increased wait times for Lyft customers and diminished earnings for Lyft drivers,” the lawsuit stated.
The lawsuit, which Uber said was recently dismissed, alleged that the practice violated the federal Wiretap Act. No dismissal paperwork is listed in federal court records, and attorneys for the plaintiff, Michael Gonzales, could not be reached Friday.
Uber attorneys, in a legal response to the lawsuit, said that Gonzales is alleging only that Uber used “commonly available software” to collect data that would be accessible to anyone using the Lyft app.