Uber Won't Allow Us to Aggregate Surge Data

Uber (Chris Messina) contacted us towards the beginning of June stating that Surge violates the Uber API Terms of Service. We asked for clarification as to how Surge violates the Terms of Service. Uber responded by saying we are not allowed to aggregate any Uber data over time or location. They said in order for Surge to not be in violation, we could only display surge information for one location and there could be no collection or graphing of surge data. Uber has given us a deadline of July 8th to bring Surge into compliance with these terms.

We aren’t for sure why Uber is coming after us now. We have been operating since August of 2015 and have been in contact with the Uber API staff over API issues before. We haven’t heard of Uber going after any other apps for aggregating surge data, so we feel singled out.

We are anticipating that Uber will shut off our access to the Uber API if we don’t comply. Moving forward we are planning to continue operating Surge as is until Uber shuts off our access to the API. The only change we have made, starting today, is we have disabled multiple month subscription In-App-Purchases, leaving one month as an option to cover the time between now and the potential shut down.

We are taking the technology we used to build Surge and are making an app for Lyft. We have already talked with Lyft, and they have stated this wouldn’t violate their API Terms of Service. Our new app is called Primetime. It will be very similar to Surge, but displaying data for Lyft instead of Uber. You can sign up for updates about the app below, we are hoping for a release in the next coming weeks.

Primetime Signup

Please stay tunned for more details.

Edit: Turns out Uber has updated their API terms on June 9th 2016, just after initially contacting us.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.