The GuardianReportIt is alleged that the contents of approximately 2013 documents obtained between 2017 and 12 show that when Uber was expanding its business in the global market at that time, it had used a number of practices that may have been illegal and on the edge of professional ethics to penetrate the global market. These included spending up to US$4000 million a year on lobbying and handling public relations matters, and even designing a one-click data destruction function in an attempt to evade regulatory issues.
The relevant reports also pointed out that Uber had tried to lobby current US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and former British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, and current French President Emmanuel Macron was involved in secretly assisting Uber in lobbying to facilitate its business operations within the European Union.
The documents, known as the "Uber Files," show that when Uber was first founded, in order to quickly expand into more markets, it took advantage of protests by traditional taxi drivers and operators, and even triggered fierce backlash, in order to gain support from all walks of life while trying to avoid regulatory scrutiny.
The document also shows Uber co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick advocating the use of violence to create opposition in conversations with other executives. By initiating controversy and providing high subsidies to lower overall fares, he also highlighted the problems of traditional taxi fares that cannot be estimated in advance and the inconvenient charging methods, in order to attract more users to support Uber services.
On the other hand, Uber has managed to circumvent the fact that its driver partners lack legal licenses for rental vehicles, and its operating model, which primarily uses unlicensed vehicles, has also drawn considerable scrutiny. However, whenever Uber drivers are attacked by taxi companies due to controversy, or when traditional taxi drivers encounter problems with their services, Uber readily seizes the opportunity to engage in the discussion and seek support from the public and government agencies.
In order to avoid regulatory issues, Uber even designed a function that can destroy data with one click to prevent the police and other regulatory agencies from obtaining relevant data content.
