Welcome to the latest edition of AFT NewsWatch, a weekly service of Advocates for Fairness in Transportation. Visit the Archive to read previous editions.

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AFT is an ad hoc group of regulated transportation service companies dedicated to informing and educating the public on threats to public safety from new so-called ride-sharing or ride-booking services such as Uber, Lyft and Sidecar.

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Uber suspends operations in Nevada

Uber Technologies suspended its operations in Nevada after a district judge earlier this week issued an injunction preventing the company from operating in the state. Dust off your "Leaving Las Vegas" jokes. "Beginning tonight, nearly 1,000 jobs disappeared in Nevada and those residents lost their ability to earn a living," Uber wrote in a blog post Wednesday. "But, rest assured, Uber is in this for the long-term and we are committed to the people of the Silver State." 

Read more The Wall Street Journal

What's really wrong with Uber?

Somewhere within Uber's corporate halls, its communications team is slamming their heads against the wall. The latest blunders have strengthened claims that Uber is sexist, immature, and creepy. Strangely, they've also come at a time when Uber was starting to seem genuinely interested in changing its image. In recent weeks, Uber has organized a series of off-the-record meetings and dinners to court the press and promote a softer, friendlier image.

Read more from Slate

Leaked transcript shows Geico's stance against Uber, Lyft

The Geico gecko won't be hopping into a Lyft or UberX car any time soon. An internal sales-training document from the insurance giant lays out the hard line it takes with policyholders who give paid rides through the two San Francisco companies. "Please Group Reject the policy" of customers involved in "ridesharing," one section reads. Another provides a script for telling customers that their policies don't cover vehicles used for the ride services, and that they can seek coverage elsewhere for their cars - or may have to prove they no longer drive for Uber or Lyft. Read more from SF Gate

A former Uber driver reveals the worst things about the job

Working for a multi-billion dollar company isn't always as glamorous as it may seem. Claire Callahan Goodman, a San Francisco-based mother who worked part time for Uber to earn some extra cash, just revealed why she decided to quit her job as a driver in a new post on  Salon. Goodman said her background growing up in the city and speaking English as her first language should have made this an easy, stress-free part time job for her. 

Read more from Business Insider

Is Uber's rider database a sitting duck for hackers?

Imagine for a second that your job is to gather intelligence on government officials in Washington, or financiers in London, or entrepreneurs in San Francisco. Imagine further that there existed a database that collected daily travel information on such people with GPS-quality precision - where they went, when they went there and who else went to those same places at the same times. Now add that all this location data was not held by a battle-hardened company with tons of lawyers and security experts, such as Google. Instead, this data was held by a start-up that was growing with viral exuberance - and with so few privacy protections that it created a "God View" to display the movements of riders in real-time and at least once projected such information on a screen for entertainment at a company party.

Read more from the Washington Post

Is this the highest surge price ever recorded in Uber history?

Surge pricing is Economics 101, mobile ride-hailing company Uber preaches. If you want supply to keep up with increasing demand, you need to encourage drivers to get on the road and come pick you up. "By *raising* the price you *increase* the number of cars on the road and maximize the number of safe convenient rides," Uber explained in a blog post on surge pricing. "Nobody is required to take an Uber, but having a reliable option is what we're shooting for." 

Read more from Business Insider

Survey: Almost half of Uber drivers say they'll drive less for Uber now

Uber riders were quick to talk about deleting the Uber app in response to last week's privacy concerns and backlash. But drivers also said they would take a stand and leave the app behind, a recent survey found. Almost half of Uber drivers said in a survey that they would drive less or not at all for Uber after last week's public-relations fiasco, which began with a Buzzfeed report of an Uber executive's statements at a dinner and escalated into allegations of investor conspiracy and broad discussions of the app's privacy policy. 

Read more from Forbes

What Airbnb gets about culture that Uber doesn't

Last week, as Uber battled a media firestorm after a senior executive talked of investigating unfriendly journalists and a company manager actually used its "God View" feature to track the comings and goings of a reporter, Airbnb welcomed more than 1,500 of its most productive providers to its first-ever host convention, an immersive celebration one expert attendee likened to a Mary Kay event. 

Read more from Harvard Business Review

Regular old taxis become cool again: Flywheel downloads up 300% in wake of Uber drama

Uber's week of PR hell is the gift that keeps on giving to its competitors. Taxi-hailing app Flywheel says it's seen a massive increase in downloads in the past week. Uber's controversy involving reporters and privacy violations spawned calls for boycotts and switching to alternative on-demand car service options. And now, in addition to Lyft's claim of seeing a huge bump in number of rides in the past week, Flywheel has seen a 300 percent increase in app downloads, the company told VentureBeat. 

Read more from VentureBeat

Two men robbed by alleged cab driver Thursday morning

Two men were robbed Thursday morning after getting into a vehicle that was marked the same of that of a ride sharing service. The victims told police that they got into a  Saab  outside a bar around 3:40 a.m. and asked the driver to take them to Speedway. Believing it to be that of a ride sharing service provider the victims were told by the driver he did not take credit or debit cards. After one of the victims stated he had $25 the driver then agreed to then take them to their requested location. Read more from Fox59 Indianapolis

Uber's Android app may be collecting an alarming amount of your personal data

Uber's Android app may be sending your private data back to the company, reports Cult of Mac's Buster Hein. The data transfer was reportedly discovered by Joe Giron, who runs a cybersecurity firm. Cult of Mac says: "Digging into the app's code, GironSec discovered the Uber app "calls home" and sends private data back to Uber. This isn't typical app data, though. Uber is sending back users' entire SMSLog even though the app never requests permission."

Read more from Business Insider

Blind woman says Uber driver stranded her, service dog

A blind Connecticut woman says an Uber taxi driver refused to pick her up because of her seeing-eye dog, leaving her stranded. Amy Dixon said she called up an Uber car on her app in Darien Tuesday night, and a driver confirmed the pickup.  "I can see a little bit out of my right eye, I've got 1 percent left of my vision. So I'm standing there with my guide dog on the curb and a car pulls up, and it's him," she said.  As she put her hand on the door, the driver suddenly revved the engine and took off, stranding her, she said. 

Read more from NBC4 New York