Thursday 23 November 2017

Week 7: Uber: under suspicion

Uber: under suspicion: "Yet the latest admission — that Uber covered up the theft by hackers of data from 50m passengers and 7m drivers — is so bad it is increasingly hard to see an unimpaired initial public offering in that timeframe.

Financial effects already exist from Uber’s serial moral failings: it has bled market share to rival Lyft.

But the handling of the data breach puts it in another tier of jeopardy. From May next year a tough EU rule, the General Data Protection Regulation will allow Brussels to levy fines of up to 4 per cent of turnover if data are leaked. If Uber maintains its current growth rate, its annual net revenues should be $9bn — and the potential fine $360m. Gross bookings would make it five times higher.

That is real money, even to the largest private tech company.

That is hypothetical. But the severity of the punishments reflects the vengeful public mood.

Real liabilities exist in the US from the breach, from the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys-general and in lawsuits.

The bigger problem is that estimating the scope of Uber’s myriad wrongdoing and the scale of potential punishments is impossible." 'via Blog this'

No comments: