But the driver is served by this -- the driver wants the Uber platform to be scalable, available and ensure the 'successfully customer experience' the article refers to, so that they can continue to get paid for providing the rides.
Now, if Uber were offering a free 'lol cats apps' on the app store that surreptitiously ran this protocol in the background of unsuspecting users I think it would be a different case, but running technology that supports the goal of the main app doesn't feel out of bounds to me.
To your point, those phones are not the drivers personal phones, but they are provided by Uber. Uber is just storing information on their own hardware basically.
Exactly. You can download the driver application from the Uber Website. They are distributing it as an Enterprise application(on iPhone) thereby circumventing the App Store.
Now, if Uber were offering a free 'lol cats apps' on the app store that surreptitiously ran this protocol in the background of unsuspecting users I think it would be a different case, but running technology that supports the goal of the main app doesn't feel out of bounds to me.