Uber God View — 60s explainer (D04)

01 / 08 · Setup

YOU ORDER AN UBER.

who sees where you are?

02 / 08 · Tension

DRIVER ? EVERYONE AT UBER.

God View dashboard

03 / 08 · Reveal

GOD VIEW

internal tool · access: managers, interns, recruiters

04 / 08 · Mechanism

map → each cursor = customer → click = history

Uber employee

default access

no justification · no audit

Every ride

in real time

used at company parties: showing journalists' routes

05 / 08 · Scale

EVERY UBER CITY. THOUSANDS HAVE ACCESS.

2011 launch 2014 exposed 2018 settlement

50 states

USA sued

148M

USD settlement

20K

USD first NY fine

06 / 08 · Discovery

NOVEMBER 2014

Johana Bhuiyan

BuzzFeed · journalist

Sarah Lacy

PandoDaily · "they showed me"

Emil Michael

SVP Uber · plan to track

God View shown to journalist as a feature

07 / 08 · Settlement

$148M

combined with D06 breach · 50 states · 2018

+ 20K USD first NY AG fine — symbolic. Uber: "access policy has been tightened." Truth: only after lawsuits.

08 / 08

GOD VIEW

Tracking customers was a feature, not a bug. They showed it to journalists — as a feature.
File D04 in Big Tech Files.