Former Uber Employee Alleges Company Asked Them To Use Vanishing Messages

Recently Uber has been in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. The company was recently fined for hiring drivers who had driving-related criminal records, and also for disclosing a data breach that took place back in 2016. As if that wasn’t enough, a former Uber employee has come forward with some additional evidence in the lawsuit with Waymo about the company’s practices.

In a report from CNBC, former Uber security analyst Rich Jacobs has come forward with a claim that Uber allegedly asked employees to use messenger apps with disappearing messages, such as Wickr, in a bid to prevent “Uber’s unlawful schemes from seeing the light of day.” A report from Associated Press also revealed that Uber hired contractors that employs former CIA agents in an attempt to infiltrate their rivals’ computers overseas, which if true is rather damning indeed.

For those unfamiliar with the ongoing lawsuit, earlier this year, Waymo filed a lawsuit against Uber in which the claim that the latter company had stolen their self-driving technology secrets. This was when they acquired a company called Otto which was started by a former Waymo employee who apparently stole the confidential information before he left, which he then used to start his own company which was later bought by Uber.

Based on these recent allegations, Judge William Alsup has delayed the trial at the request of Waymo. While Waymo and Uber have yet to comment on these allegations, Alsup said, “We’re going to have to put the trial off because if even half of what’s in that letter is true it would be a huge injustice to force Waymo to go to trial.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: General, Transportation
Tags: Legal, Uber, Waymo