This is frankly incredible the more that comes out. Paying someone 4.5M in 12 months and then saying everything they claimed is false is some Olympic level gymnastics. I think this level of cover-up is bigger than many reasonable people who thought Uber was guilty expected.
<i>Judge Alsup questioned why Uber would pay so much to an employee making bogus claims. “To someone like me, an ordinary mortal, and to ordinary mortals out there in the audience — people don’t pay that kind of money for B.S.,” the judge said.</i><p><i>Uber’s rationale for the settlement: It would cost less to settle with him than to fight him in court. Also, Mr. Jacobs’s claims could hurt Uber’s reputation, Ms. Padilla testified.</i><p>I guess it's open season at Uber now? All you have to do is send them a letter with bogus claims, and they'll pay you millions? /s
"As part of the deal, Mr. Jacobs was kept on as a security consultant, Ms. Padilla testified. His job: investigating the claims made in the letter his lawyer wrote."<p>Is this a joke? Is this real? I can't even.
Seems Uber's solution to every problem - throw money and see it disappear. If it comes back say - well that was not the intention.<p>Threatens to become a whistle blower? Pay the guy 4.5 million and his lawyer 3 million.<p>Stolen data? Pay the hacker to delete data.
"<i>She said Uber had planned to fire Mr. Jacobs because its security team had caught him downloading sensitive company information to his personal computer.</i>"<p>Well, I guess they'd know how bad that was.
For anyone interested in reading more about this. You can see the docket, and a lot of the original filings for this case for free via the RECAP project.<p><a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4609586/waymo-llc-v-uber-technologies-inc/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc" rel="nofollow">https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4609586/waymo-llc-v-ube...</a>
I'll be damned if Uber isn't a required case study for business school students in the (near) future. They are fast becoming the Enron of this generation.
If Uber is found to have stolen trade secrets, how large is the judgment against them likely to be? Is it based on some multiple of the cost of the research that produced those secrets? Or the market value of those secrets?
Uber business model is:<p>- Make money willfully violating the law<p>- Use a portion of the money to pay fines, settlements, cover ups. Keep violating the law<p>That's how they expanded to many countries before they were even authorized.
> Thirty-seven pages long, it detailed a list of questionable behavior at Uber, including spying on competitors and using special laptop computers and self-destructing messaging apps that would hide communications.<p>It doesn't seem like a good thing that using self-destructing messaging apps is considered by our court system to be "questionable behavior". It is akin to the argument that using encryption implies guilt.
>The letter is sealed but the judge said he intends to make it public after hearing any objections.<p>I love this, not only do we get to read the letter, we also get to read Uber's transparent objections beforehand.
I know of one case where after a subpoena and request for evidence: hard drives were wiped clean and mobile devices were destroyed with a hammer.
We can't have it both ways, can we?
I believe Uber was hacked years ago and knew about it yet did nothing but blame it's users for using a bad password.<p>Case in point in 2014 1K was stolen from my bank account via my Uber account for a ride in London(im in DC). I searched Twitter and saw 10 to 20 ppl a day complaining about the same thing.
I don't want to defend Uber here, but I don't see what this letter business has to do with Waymo's allegedly stolen LIDAR. Why should Uber have disclosed this letter to Waymo?<p>Also, I don't see what's the legal problem with spying on your competitors. I mean, Google and Facebook are spying on their customers, and the law apparently has no problem with that.