Uber this week emailed San Francisco users of Uber Teen (a service that transports kids ages 13-17) both to announce that it is suspending that service in California, and to blame new California Public Utilities Commission rules for that closure. Uber claims CPUC made “new and onerous changes” which left the company “no choice” except to suspend service. I emphatically disagree. The problem, such as it is, is of Uber’s own creation — and Uber had and has a viable path forward.
Narrowly: Nothing forces Uber to suspend service. Uber could comply with the CPUC’s requirement and continue service by implementing reasonable driver registration precautions, in fact the same precautions that competitor HopSkipDrive has used for years. The words “no choice” have literal meaning, and that’s just not the situation here. The real issue is that Uber disagrees with CPUC’s requirement that it check driver fingerprints, arguing that its background checks suffice. But that disagreement does not compel Uber to discontinue service. Many people and companies disagree with many laws and regulations. The normal process is to submit comments in a legislative or rulemaking process, to sue if you think the rule is so broken that (say) it’s unconstitutional, to invoke political remedies such as replacing whoever imposed the rule, and ultimately to honor the democratic process by complying. Win some, lose some, and hope to win more than you lose. In contrast, Uber’s approach is a threat: Either the regulation goes Uber’s way, or Uber will cease service.
Broadly: Uber suggests that CPUC’s regulation is ill-advised. To evaluate, start with the rationale according to CPUC:
When an adult is being tasked to provide a service to a minor, the adult is placed in a position of trust, responsibility, and control over California’s most vulnerable citizenry—children. Not conducting a fingerprint-based background check to identify adults with disqualifying arrests or criminal records would place the unaccompanied minor in a potentially dangerous, if not life-threatening situation. That is why California Assembly Bill 506 … requir[es] that administrators, employees, or regular volunteers of youth service organizations undergo a background check that includes fingerprinting.
In response, Uber claims that its background checks work well and are sufficient. Who’s right? Consider the broader context. Uber’s background checks rightly deny accounts to drivers with bad driving records, prior ejections from Uber’s platform, or no documentation establishing right to work. But if a driver can’t pass those checks, the standard strategy is to “borrow” an account from someone who can. Many people tolerate a certain amount of this for ordinary adult rides. As the CPUC explains above, the stakes are higher when transporting minors unaccompanied. In that special context, higher standards are no surprise.
If fingerprinting drivers were massively costly, it might nonetheless be an unwise investment — a cost exceeding plausible benefits. For all its protestations to CPUC and to users, Uber never quite explains why it’s (supposedly) so difficult to do what CPUC specifies. If I had to implement CPUC’s requirement, I’d collect driver fingerprints through smartphones or at the inspection centers that check drivers’ vehicles. This sounds like software plus business operations — some work, but proportional to the business opportunity of the Uber Teen service. It feels particularly reasonable because fingerprint security is increasingly common. While an employee at Microsoft, I had to present my fingerprint to my phone’s Authenticator app to activate two-factor authentication to access company resources. CPUC similarly seeks fingerprint security for drivers transporting unaccompanied minors. Why should a minor’s safety get less protection than a company’s secrets?
In a filing before the CPUC, Uber argued that higher registration requirements for Uber Teen drivers would reduce the number of drivers, hence increasing prices to passengers. But if Uber Teen rides pay drivers materially more than regular rides, drivers have corresponding incentive to get registered. The only sustainable price gap is the result of the time or difficulty of registration, but by all indications that’s minimal. If a driver’s registration burden is small, as it should be, the price gap should also be small. Supply and demand.
The most charitable reading of Uber’s message to users is that Uber would like to comply with CPUC’s requirements, but had too little time. Yet here too, Uber’s position is in tension with the facts. Uber had long known CPUC took a dim view of its service to teens, including correspondence with CPUC staff as early as January 5, 2024. On March 14, 2024, Uber filed a motion seeking approval of its service for teens. CPUC’s rulemaking was published on October 30, 2024, giving Uber a further 30 days to come into compliance. And Uber says it intends to continue service for teens until December 23, 2024. That marks 353 days since Uber was on notice of the disagreement, and 54 days between CPUC’s rulemaking and Uber’s scheduled withdrawal of service. If Uber had used those 54 days effectively, not to mention those 353, there’s every indication it could have met CPUC’s requirements. If Uber needed additional time, it could have explained how long and why. Nothing about CPUC’s approach or timetable compelled Uber to withdraw its service for teens.
Any Uber complaint about too little time to comply is further undermined by CPUC’s 2016 guidance and Uber’s reply. In particular, CPUC specifically put Uber on notice that it would need an additional approval to launch service for minors, and Uber promised to discuss with CPUC before launching any such service. So any new urgency is of Uber’s creation.
Enlisting users in its fight against CPUC
Nothing could be more fundamental to the Democratic process than informed constituents making their views heard. And the CPUC did solicit comments, though for whatever reason none were received.
But what Uber envisions now is something quite different than informed public comments. Instead, Uber provides its users with, at most, a portion of the information they would need to evaluate the disagreement. Consider: Uber’s email to users claims “new rules requiring significant changes to Teen accounts” but doesn’t say a word about what those rules are or what changes would be required. (In fact by all indications the changes are only to driver verifications, not to user accounts.) While CPUC posted a detailed rulemaking with discussion of rationale and alternatives, Uber doesn’t mention any such document available — not a link, not even the title of the proceeding. Uber’s email asks users to “let the CPUC know” “if teen rides are important to your family”, but the question before CPUC isn’t whether teen rides are important, but rather what verifications are appropriate to provide sufficient safety for those rides.
When Uber delivers user comments to CPUC, will it deliver them all? Or just those that support its position? There’s reason to suspect shenanigans: In 2015, Uber delivered 8 boxes of supposed user petitions to regulators in St. Louis, but the boxes turned out to contain only water bottles.
Uber’s attempt to turn users against CPUC is reminiscent of the company’s infamous 2015 “De Blasio mode” which mobilized users against proposed New York regulations. There, as here, Uber treated users like pawns in an astroturf operation — giving users incomplete information designed to prompt an immediate forceful response. Uber plainly hopes to flood CPUC with complaints about regulation supposedly causing suspension of Uber Teen. But users might have second thoughts if they knew the full picture. Users surely value the low prices Uber emphasizes, but for transporting unaccompanied minors, safety is bound to be a priority too. Ultimately Uber gave users no way to judge whether its protections are sufficient or whether CPUC’s requirements would actually be useful. With the limited context Uber provides, what can a user usefully tell CPUC? At a minimum, Uber should have linked to the CPUC rules at issue, should have summarized what it saw as most objectionable, and should have offered a specific alternative. A better approach, to give users a full sense of the debate, would have summarized the rationale CPUC offered for its approach, fairly and evenhandedly, so users would be closer to deciding for themselves. Predictably, Uber did none of this.
These days, Uber seeks to portray itself as kinder and gentler, supposedly reformed from its scandalous peak of 2015-2017. Uber now sponsors NPR. Chief Legal Officer Tony West is Kamala Harris’s brother-in-law and campaign advisor. But has the leopard really changed its stripes? Tellingly, Uber’s terms of service still require users with disputes to file arbitrations (not lawsuits) before an arbiter Uber chooses, and ban users from filing class actions so a single set of lawyers can efficiently pursue the claim for everyone affected. Suppose Uber gets its way and returns to transporting unaccompanied minors without the fingerprints CPUC requires. If something terrible happens — a kidnapping, assault, or worse — Uber’s terms says passengers cannot even sue. This episode smacks of the Uber of a decade ago. I’ve added it to Uberscandals.org in lobbying, regulators, and safety.