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They had two options:
1. Disregard the concerns raised as those of a vocal minority, while the overwhelming majority of their users are apathetic about Rice's appointment; refuse to legitimize the concerns by publicly acknowledging them and wait for the whole thing to blow over;
2. Acknowledge the concerns as legitimate, and damaging to users' trust in their business; as a business that depends so heavily on the trust of its users, admit an error of judgment and remove Rice from the board.
Instead, they have legitimized and publicized the concerns, but are refusing to do anything about it. They're going to get a kicking for this. Someone pass the popcorn?
Drew Houston must not know how this works. You can't placate the SV Business Morality Police with words. Only heads on a platter will satisfy.
Ok, so you believe government surveillance needs reformed. Why should you (dropbox) or we (the public) trust the woman who was part of creating that very government surveillance??
There are three possible things this could mean:
1. Rice has changed her mind about NSA surveillance.
2. Dropbox's commitments to their users do not include attempting to defend their data from government surveillance.
3. This statement is full of crap.
I'm guessing 3, but 2 is also likely. 1 does not seem to be the one to bet on.
1. Rice wasn't brought on for anything that has to do with data privacy and thus her views on data privacy are irrelevant.
2. Rice doesn't have an uncontrollable compulsion to send people's data to the NSA and thus it's unlikely she'll be sneaking off to install backdoors.
The statement is meant to address the data privacy concerns raised about her appointment. This doesn't mean the concerns are valid, just that they exist and Dropbox is aware of them. The alternative would be to not address the concerns and look completely out of touch with or intentionally ignoring the frenzy of the past few days.
I'm just saying that their statement (not the appointment, but what they said right here) is completely at odds with the notion that they care about the privacy of their users.
That's all I'm saying. I'm not focused on data privacy, I'm merely noting that this statement appears to either contradict the facts at hand or be an implicit admission that they don't care about data privacy.
So I guess that comes down to what Rice's exact views are.
Personally, I doubt she's completely against the idea of data privacy in all cases and thus it's possible that Dropbox's existing views and policies on data privacy are compatible with hers.
And anyway, I doubt that Dropbox could or would stop responding to FISA requests or warrants regardless of who's on the board considering that they operate in the US.
FISA requests and warrants aren't really at issue here. Warrants are exactly how this stuff is supposed to be done. FISA requests are pretty much just an odd form of warrant, and any opposition to them comes down to thinking they shouldn't be issued, not that they shouldn't be obeyed. The issue at hand is warrantless surveillance. Does Dropbox hand over user data to the government without a warrant? If not, given that Rice is in favor of such things and Dropbox says she fully supports their commitments, there is a contradiction somewhere.
That is quite believable. Heck, lawyers do things like that all the time--advise someone on how to act in accord with that person's interests and principles, even if those conflict with the lawyer's interests or principles. This ability is not limited to lawyers. Besides lawyers, this is often done by people who manage the financial accounts of others, by people who manage the health care of others, and by people who accept positions as outside directors on the boards of companies.
Certain people at Dropbox seem to have lost touch with reality.
Even if you want to defend the appointment of Rice, you have to be insanely insensitive to refer to international expansion as a motive.
In other words, Rice has probably already paid for herself many times over.
(Actually, I think the crew behind the Iraq war shouldn't be on any boards but rather in prison. This isn't a political issue in my mind but rather a criminal one. Killing over 100,000 on false pretenses is well beyond the pale of what civilization should allow.)
But I do suspect the geek is more likely to be aware of Rice's appointment and close their account over it.
After all, the geek has options.
We don't consider the case where geek users are more likely to have a non-free plan than non-geek users, since then that is obviously a net loss to dropbox if they leave, under the reasonable assumption that paying users of dropbox are more profitable to dropbox then their free user brethren.
The last possibility, that non-geek users are more likely to be paying users than geek users, is no more likely than the two scenarios above, according to your own knowledge. So why did you assert that geek users are a net loss to dropbox to begin with?
[] and also that these two sets of users is a partitioning of the whole set of users.
In this case I can sample. Now, my sample size isn't very large, in fact it's just one person... me.
I had a free account and I closed it. I doubt they care.
But don't you think you are taking a comment made largely in jest just a bit too seriously?
In this case I can sample. Now, my sample size isn't very large, in fact it's just one person... me.
Ah, yes. Very cute. Doesn't make a lick of sense. But cute.
> But don't you think you are taking a comment made largely in jest just a bit too seriously?
It's funny how, when something does not hold up to scrutiny, it was all just a joke all along. Then the person that performed the scrutiny was just an uptight person that couldn't take a joke. Yes. Very convenient.
You seem to want to argue so let me indulge you....
I postulate geeks are more likely to use Dropbox's free service than non-geeks. Why? 1) They are better informed of alternative options and thus less likely to pay as they can spread their files out over multiple free services.
2) They have less trouble implanting multiple file storage options. Non-geeks are more likely to be intimidated by this and thus pay for the "name brand" and "what they know" option.
3) Geeks are known to be cheap. (ok... say "Cute" again).
4) I can keep going if you want.
I think all this pretty clearly indicates my original point was valid. And this ridiculous thread indicates someone needs to spend less time on the computer and stop picking pepper out of flypoop.
As for hiring Rice... ya, that seems like a bad idea on Dropbox's part.
Really? That's your "scrutiny"?
The problem here is what kind of ethics, common sense, or both we can expect from a company who puts somebody on their board who as far as the majority of the population of this planet is concerned should be standing trial for crimes against humanity.
What did she in particular do that would meet that bill, besides agree to serve in the Bush Administration? Can we at least wait a couple of weeks between witchhunts in the tech industry?
That's why I want to know what she did other than fill a post.
or do a two second google check.
A prominent member of "Anything"?
A regime that invaded another country under false pretenses resulting in the death of of at least 100,000 thousand is just "Anything"?
That's just "small potato political differences" to you?
And, most especially in the case of Rice/Dropbox the issue is support for warrentless surveillance.
What Nazis were charged with is hardly relevant.
She was a prominent and powerful part of that administration, and as such participated actively in the WMD deception and the use of torture.
If the US wasn't the most powerful nation on the planet she would be in a jail cell in The Hague right now.
Completely ignoring what one may personally think of her, what kind of company would put someone like that on the board?
(Also, do you really not get the irony of using the term "witch hunt" given the actions of the so-called "victims" here?)
Just that they aren't SpiderOak and aren't going to encrypt all of your data client side before uploading it. That would require changing their entire architecture and they aren't going to do so.
i.e. "We should have been clearer about how this isn't what it looks like."
or
It is just about that stupid. Maybe stupider. Or else there is a whole lot I really don't understand and the managers of Dropbox do.
Yes, I trust that you revealed your real position.
Gaining marketshare is more important to you than user data privacy.
Got it!