Uber, Lyft are best guards of user privacy, says EFF

Among sharing economy companies in the U.S., the two ridesharing giants are the paragons

Editor's Note: Our annual Vator Splash Spring 2016 conference is around the corner on May 12, 2016 at the historic Scottish Rite Center in Oakland. Speakers include Tom Griffiths (CPO & Co-founder, FanDuel), Andy Dunn (Founder & CEO, Bonobos), Nirav Tolia (Founder & CEO, NextDoor), Mitch Kapor (Founder of Kapor Center for Social Impact and one of the co-founders of the EFF); Founders of Handy, TubeMogul, VSCO, Vinted; Investors from Khosla Ventures, Javelin Venture Partners, Kapor Capital, Greylock, DFJ, IDG, IVP and more. Join us! REGISTER HERE.

First, we thought Google knew too much. Then Facebook took the crown for unparalleled access to personal information. Today, the rapidly burgeoning sharing economy sector seems to be the one that knows everything about where we go and how we spend our time.

So how is this new class of companies doing when it comes to safeguarding user privacy?

Many sharing economy companies, including Airbnb, Postmates, and TaskRabbit, are doing an awful job, according to a new report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

(Ed. note: Mitch Kapor, Founder of Kapor Center for Social Impact and one of the co-founders of the EFF, will be speaking at Vator Splash Spring next week. Get your tickets today!)

Founded in 1990, the San Francisco-based EFF is an international non-profit dedicated to fighting for individuals' rights in the digital age. And, for the past five years, the firm has published an annual report called “Who Has Your Back?”, which evaluates several large or rapidly expanding tech companies in terms of how transparent they are about government requests and whether or not they fight for user privacy in Congress.

While the first report of this kind gave most companies—including Apple, Dropbox, and Facebook—a failing grade, the newest report evaluated the new class of companies representing the sharing economy or gig economy.

(Or, as we’re calling it at Vator Splash Spring a week from today, the “zero-waste economy.” Get a ticket to the event today and we’ll let you ask our panelists where they stand on user privacy.)

Interestingly, among the companies evaluated, Lyft and Uber were the only two that passed all of the EFF’s criteria, from "requires warrant for user content" to "stands up for user privacy in Congress." Airbnb and Instacart each met half of the criteria, though both missed on "requires warrant for prospective location,” “issues a public transparency report,” and “tells users about government data demands.”

Several other prominent companies, however, failed completely: Getaround, Postmates, TaskRabbit, Turo, and VRBO failed to meet any of the EFF’s set criteria.

“These companies collect information on what you buy, where you sleep, and where you travel—whether you are offering services, or purchasing them,” said EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman in a prepared statement. “Often they go even further, collecting contents of communications and geolocation information from your cell phone. But are these companies respecting their users’ rights when the government comes knocking? For much of the gig economy, the answer is no.”

In its report, the EFF admits that meeting its defined criteria takes time, and many of the companies evaluated in its report haven’t even been around for ten years. But it also knows that pressure from a well-known nonprofit can help spur changes within those organizations. Indeed, the EFF takes at least some credit for spurring on companies evaluated in its first reports to meet these criteria.

Congrats to Uber and Lyft this year. As for the rest, we’ll be checking in with you next year to see if anything’s improved.