Uber’s Troubles Continue as the FTC Takes Aim

It has not been a great time for Uber recently. The mobile-focused ridesharing service faces attacks from all sides, as its CEO steps down and a board member recently resigned. Now, just to make matters worse in a fashion that only the government can, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is launching a probe into Uber’s operations.

More specifically, the FTC probe is targeting Uber based on “privacy violations,” though what that means is as yet unclear. Some reports suggest that it may be related to the “god view” system that Uber users, which some Uber employees were using to track the whereabouts of certain users, particularly celebrities and politicians.

If that’s the case, it would be true to form for the FTC, which has been increasingly focused on privacy violations from e-commerce and communications systems; Google had similar troubles with the FTC back in 2012 based on tracking in Safari, which prompted a $22.5 million fine, and Facebook agreed to “privacy audits” for 20 years following a decision in 2011 based around Facebook’s privacy policies.

This is downright disastrous for Uber; even if nothing much comes of the matter, it’s still going to have to shell out plenty of cash and take a lot of time away from more productive matters to take on the FTC, and this is in the middle of a time where Google’s suing them over trade secrets and there’s no shortage of upheaval at the top. Plus, Uber was already looking to alter its corporate culture as the result of an internal investigation.

Basically, it’s a safe bet that internal innovation at Uber is going to be slim for a while as it puts out the numerous fires that have cropped up as a result of daily operations. That’s not good news for the company or its shareholders, as competitors like Lyft will be able to better step in. There’s also been some recent word about Uber’s plans to get into trucking, and the early word on that development has not been positive.

There’s a lot going against Uber right now, and the company’s going to have to work hard to overcome this sheer amount of upheaval and potential disaster.