Its raining lawsuits for Uber; this time for tracking Lyft drivers

Looks like its a season of lawsuits for cab-aggregator, Uber. Barely days after being sued by Hailo Technologies for patent infringement comes yet another lawsuit by a former Lyft driver alleging that a secret program- internally called "Hell"- created by the ride-hailing giant to spy on its rival’s drivers violated federal and state privacy laws.

The program, first revealed by the tech news site, the Information, involved creating fake Lyft driver accounts and using them to see the locations and information of up to eight other nearby Lyft drivers. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges Uber broadly invaded the privacy of the Lyft drivers, specifically violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act and Federal Wiretap Act and engaged in unfair competition.

"Uber accomplished this by incentivizing drivers working on both platforms to work primarily for Uber, thereby reducing the supply of Lyft drivers which resulted in increased wait times for Lyft customers and diminished earnings for Lyft drivers," said the lawsuit, which one of Gonzales' attorneys posted online.

Though Uber refuted to The Information allegations, it did not, however, confirm or deny the existence of Hell as a whole. The complaint cites the 2012 supreme court case United States v Jones, which found that Americans have constitutional protections against GPS tracking by law enforcement.

Monday’s lawsuit is the latest in a series of bad news for Uber that includes viral #DeleteUber campaign, allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination, mass executive departures, and a major legal battle with Google spinoff Waymo.