J.R.McHale

Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel at Microsoft, speaking at the Brookings Institution on “The Future of Global Technology, Privacy and Regulation” in light of the Snowden revelations.

“We need to recognize that we do need, in my opinion, a broad based legal and regulatory model when it comes to company use of personal information . . . . Imagine a bank that doesn’t take good care of its customers’ money. Do you think it has a bright future? What do you think of a tech company that doesn’t take good care of its customers information. I believe that over the long term the world will expect and even insist that we pay as much attention to the personal information of consumers as banks do to their money. And the sooner we get started on that, and the faster we come together to have [a] kind of broad based conversation . . . . . the more successful we will be.”

Total time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.
Brad Smith’s main presentation: 03:50 to 48:35
Moderator questions: 49:47 to 1.05:11
Audience questions: beginning 1.05:50

Related: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance — Wired:

“American firms in the cloud computing sector are feeling the pressure as consumers and corporate clients reconsider using third-party storage companies in the U.S. for their data. Companies like Dropbox and Amazon Web Services reportedly have lost business to overseas competitors like Artmotion, a Swiss hosting provider. The CEO of the European firm reported that within a month after the first revelations of NSA spying went public, his company’s business jumped 45 percent. Similarly, 25 percent of respondents in a survey of 300 British and Canadian businesses earlier this year said they were moving their data outside the US as a result of NSA spying. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation has estimated that repercussions from the spying could cost the U.S. cloud computing industry some $22 to $35 billion over the next few years in lost business.”