Uber Moves Stealthily to Gain Allies in a Fight With Cities

In February, the outreach director for an organization called Communities Against Rider Surveillance wrote to Evan Greer. CARS wanted to know if Fight for the Future, a nonprofit digital-rights advocacy group where Greer is the deputy director, would join, and allow itself to be listed as a member of the newly formed coalition. "CARS is a new coalition working to raise awareness of a dangerous technology called Mobility Data Specification," the email from outreach director Rich Dunn read. "In the wrong hands, the information collected by MDS poses grave privacy and safety risks." MDS is a technical specification created by Los Angeles' Department of Transportation, now managed by a third-party foundation.