23 December 2016

BuzzFeed News: “Uber can now Find Your Friends without needing an address from you”

How it works: First, you have to give Uber access to your contacts; then you’d enter a friend’s name as the destination. Uber will ping that friend, asking to access the GPS on their phone to confirm the destination, and once they accept, you’ll be on your way.

Important note: Uber won’t follow the friend as they move around. One they confirm their location, it’s a static destination. The friend you set as your destination also has to answer Uber within 30 minutes.

Blake Montgomery

Sounds like a really useful feature, and likely one of the reasons Uber recently updated its app to constantly track users’ location. But I don’t really understand how this 30 minutes interval until your friend shares his location is supposed to work: is the driver going to wait for confirmation? Or do both driver and passenger drive around aimlessly in the Uber car until they get a destination? If the friend refuses your request do you still get partially billed for the trip?

Also, the prospect of sharing contacts with Uber doesn’t appeal to me at all; I just don’t trust their business practices.

Connect your contacts to the Uber app and you can make your friends and family the actual destination. Find out more at uber.com/whereto

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