"Unlike Lyft, Uber changes the tokens it uses..identify drivers, to prevent such tracking."
Was that before or after they realized that design could be used to track their competitors?
Before anyone in the UK gets too smug that this could not happen there Google the behavior of "Stagecoach" and deregulated bus services. Mrs Thatch's economic advisor (when this happened) wanted an owner operator model of buses like that he had seen in Chile.
Which explains the UK's 3rd world bus service.
In IT their bahavior harkens back to NCR when they were the National Cash Register company and their CEO's comment on "Competition" was "the best way to kill a dog is to cut its head off."
Biting the hand that feeds IT
