Uber is certainly a controversial company, raising the ire of traditional cabbies who are losing business to the car service. Its news coverage encompasses the good, the bad and the ugly, an assortment of satisfied, budget-conscious customers, those who complain of bad service, and accusations of flouting regulations.
According to Bloomberg, one manager is not taking negative publicity lying down, but seems to have gone way too far. Josh Mohrer, general manager for Uber’s New York office, allegedly tracked a Buzzfeed reporter who wrote a negative article about Uber.
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The whole thing exploded when Emil Michael, Uber’s vice president told a Buzzfeed editor that he would be willing to pay a price for personal information about the Buzzfeed reporter to get revenge for articles poo-pooing Uber.
An Uber spokeswoman, Nairi Hourdajian, said that not yet specified disciplinary action would be taken against those involved, and added, “Access to and use of data is permitted only for legitimate business purposes.” Well, that is obvious to us, but it might be news to the people at Uber.
The scandal comes as Uber is in a round of raising money that would have it valued between $35 billion and $40 billion. This is a dramatic rise from its $17 billion valuation in June.
Senator Al Franken from Minnesota has demanded that Uber answer questions about its privacy rules. In the meantime, Uber says it will make an internal review.
