Warc, 17 September 2014
SAN FRANCISCO: Major players in the US technology sector run
the risk of alienating consumers and regulators in other countries if they fail
to tackle rising concerns over privacy, several leading executives have argued.
On the one hand, a backlash against the surveillance of
internet and telephone communications by the American government has deepened
suspicions of companies based in the country.
Moreover, the enormous influence that a small number of
large US corporations hold over business and culture is the source of
considerable disquiet.
Peter Thiel, a well-known investor and a director of
Facebook, the world's biggest social network, thus sounded a note of warning
while speaking to the Financial Times.
"Silicon Valley is quite oblivious to the degree to
which this crescendo of concern is building up in Europe. It's an extremely
important thing and Silicon Valley is underestimating it badly," he said.
Having been the subject of various privacy controversies in
the past, Facebook is one firm now seeking to respond to differing priorities
in specific geographies.
"We certainly don't think there's a one-size-fits-all.
Facebook would like to be more sensitive to more local concerns," Thiel
said.
Google, the search giant, has also come under pressure in
the European Union about the "right to be forgotten", where
individuals can ask that some links are removed from its pages.
Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, revealed the dramatic shift
in political opinion relating to US technology enterprises had been unexpected.
"I was surprised it turned this quickly," he said.
But he also disputed the idea these organisations are not
receptive to such changes in sentiment. "It's easy to blame the tech
companies for being insufficiently sensitive – we are way sensitive, trust
me."
Elsewhere, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com – a leader in
the tech solutions and cloud computing categories – agreed consumer internet
firms had "paid a terrible price" for enforcing a US-led perspective
overseas.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a
think tank, has even suggested American businesses in the cloud-computing space
may lose $22bn to $35bn in the next three years due to worries over
surveillance.
"A lot of people have been caught off-guard," said
Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, a cloud-based storage system. "I don't think it
was what many people thought about as they built these companies and
technologies."
Data sourced from Financial Times; additional content by
Warc staff
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