Condoleezza Rice’s appointment to the board of
Dropbox has met protest. Ms. Rice, a former US Secretary of State (2005-2009), was appointed by Dropbox in a bid to raise the company’s global profile. But the appointment comes against a backdrop of recent revelations that the United State’s surveillance agency, the National Security Agency (or NSA), has been involved in widespread surveillance of US citizens, and was in fact involved in wiretapping while Ms. Rice was in office.
An online petition has been setup calling for a boycott of Dropbox until her removal from the company’s board which quickly received 2,000 signatures.
Former CIA employee and NSA contractor Edward Snowden released classified material to British newspaper “The Guardian” and American newspaper “The Washington Post” which revealed that NSA Internet surveillance programs – some in conjunction with a parallel British agency– regularly monitored key web-based email services like Gmail and Yahoo Mail.
Dropbox caters to 275 million users. News of Ms. Rice’s appointment came alongside the company’s recent Mailbox for Android launch and the extension of its “Dropbox for Business” service. The company also launched a new flagship iOS and Android app called “Carousel”. The app manages photo and document storing and sharing by storing them in files based on when they were created and in which location.
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