My favourite piracy definition is by Steve Jobs who said: "Privacy is knowing what you signed up for".
We can argue back on forth on what the implications of the names showing up are and aren't[1], but neither the referrers nor the referrals knew that this would happen. That's bad privacy on Uber's and Dropbox's part.
[1]: Not everyone manages to get people to sign up as fast as you did. The implication of this is that if I know who signs up and when, I can surmise their name based on this information, which violates the user's privacy. Again, privacy is very contingent on the implications of what a malefactor might be capable of.
Whether a mountain or a molehill, this is something that just doesn't serve any good purpose but comes with some negative consequences.
We can argue back on forth on what the implications of the names showing up are and aren't[1], but neither the referrers nor the referrals knew that this would happen. That's bad privacy on Uber's and Dropbox's part.
[1]: Not everyone manages to get people to sign up as fast as you did. The implication of this is that if I know who signs up and when, I can surmise their name based on this information, which violates the user's privacy. Again, privacy is very contingent on the implications of what a malefactor might be capable of.
Whether a mountain or a molehill, this is something that just doesn't serve any good purpose but comes with some negative consequences.