SoylentNews

First Privacy-Focused US Technology Officer Leaves Office

posted by azrael on Sunday August 17 2014, @07:11PM   
from the privacy-not-our-priority dept.

AnonTechie writes:

The Washington Post reports on U.S. Deputy CTO Nicole Wong leaving the White House:

U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer Nicole Wong, who focused on privacy and big data issues, is leaving the White House a little more than a year after joining the Obama administration. Wong's last day is Friday; she will return to California where her family lives, the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy said in a statement.

Prior to joining the Obama administration, Wong was director of legal products at Twitter and deputy general counsel at Google. At Google, she earned the nickname "The Decider" - a reference to the role she took in helping to determine when to censor results on the company’s search engine or clips on its YouTube video service that governments claimed ran afoul of local laws.

• Yes (Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday August 17 2014, @07:58PM

  by VLM (445) on Sunday August 17 2014, @07:58PM (#82363)

  "a reference to the role she took in helping to determine when to censor results"

  So she's merely a human implementation of the /usr/bin/yes command?

  That's pretty much what I've heard about the response at the corporate level, they're just a bunch of Winston Smiths, so I'd assume as a part of that, she isn't exactly confrontational. Oh you say "we've always been at war with Eastasia.", OK thanks for letting us know we'll "adjust" search results to match.

  Given that, if she's out of the administration, is it much of a loss? Or rephrased, could the situation get any worse?

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+2
  Insightful=2, Total=2
  Extra 'Insightful' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		4