Another Brendan Eich? Criticism mounts against Dropbox after Condoleezza Rice appointment

Cloud-based storage provider Dropbox suffered a backlash from some of its users after the company appointed Condoleezza Rice, who was US secretary of state during the Bush Administration, to its board of directors.

Dropbox’s blog post announcing Rice’s appointment received 713 comments, and news of the appointment was criticised by many on social media, appearing under the hastag #DropDropbox on Twitter, along with a website critical of Rice called drop-dropbox.com and critical editorials on a number of websites, including TechDirt.

On Friday, Dropbox chief executive Drew Houston posted a statement defending the decision to appoint Rice as a director.

“There’s nothing more important to us than keeping your stuff safe and secure. It’s why we’ve been fighting for transparency and government surveillance reform, and why we’ve been vocal and public with our principles and values.

“We should have been clearer that none of this is going to change with Dr Rice’s appointment to our board. Our commitment to your rights and your privacy is at the heart of every decision we make, and this will continue.

“Dr Rice understands our stance on these issues and fully supports our commitments to our users.”

The situation has been likened by some commentators to the backlash suffered by Mozilla following the appointment of Brendan Eich as chief executive.