Dropbox defends fantastically badly timed Condoleezza Rice appointment

'Nothing is going to change with Dr. Rice's appointment,' file sharer promises

File sharing service Dropbox has taken to the internet to defend its ill-timed appointment of Condoleezza Rice to its board of directors.

The storage company wrote in a blog post that "there's nothing more important to us than keeping your stuff safe and secure" on Friday after being subjected to a full-throated outcry over its appointment of Dr Rice.

Condoleezza Rice was the 66th Secretary of State and served in the administration of George W Bush. She was a supporter of wiretapping, surveillance, the invasion of Iraq, and waterboarding.

Given recent revelations around the spy-happy NSA it was somewhat perplexing to see the former spy-friendly politician gain a seat on the board of a widely used file-sharing startup.

"We're honored to have Dr. Rice join our board — she brings an incredible amount of experience and insight into international markets and the dynamics that define them," the company wrote. "As we continue to expand into new countries, we need that type of insight to help us reach new users and defend their rights. Dr. Rice understands our stance on these issues and fully supports our commitments to our users."

Though Dropbox claimed that Dr. Rice's appointment wouldn't change its commitment to transparency and fighting government surveillance, many commentators on the blog post were not so impressed.

"She is a very accomplished person, I admire many things about her. She could serve well on the boards of many companies," said one, "but her being on the board of a company that should be as concerned about the rights of its customers as Dropbox should be, makes no sense."

It's worth noting that last time we checked, Dropbox had built the majority of its technology on Jeff Bezos's cloud wing Amazon Web Services – a company that last year successfully fought off IBM in gaining a $600m cloud contract for ... wait for it ... the CIA! ®