
117. Breaking Up Big Tech, Internet Ethics and Risks of Trump’s Trade War | Richard Whitt

Richard Whitt (@richardswhitt) is an 11-year vet of Google, corporate strategist, technology policy attorney and founder of GLIAnet, an organization, and foundation looking to upend existing surveillance capitalism paradigm with a user-owned and controlled data system. Richard is Fellow in Residence with the Mozilla Foundation, a Senior Fellow with Georgetown Institute for Technology Law and Policy and advises companies on the complex governance challenges at the intersection of the market, technology, and policy systems. As Google’s corporate director for strategic initiatives, he worked on policy and ethical issues related to IoT, machine learning, broadband connectivity, net neutrality, digital preservation, and other emerging technologies and negotiated with the Cuban government to build the country’s first free public WiFi hotspot for Internet access. From 2012 to 2014, Richard was chosen by Google management as the Corporate Vice President and Global Head of Public Policy at newly-acquired Motorola Mobility.
In particular, he headed up Google’s open Internet policy on a global basis, guided the Company’s participation in the FCC’s 700 MHz auction, helped secure TV White Spaces spectrum allocation, and collaborated on the nationwide launch of Google Fiber.
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In today’s episode we discuss:
- The most important internet ethics issues of our day
- How regulation helps and hurts our privacy future
- Why net neutrality is such a landmark issue and what it means for all of us
- Which tech monopolies Richard is most worried about and why
- The power and promise of 5G
- What do we do about online advertising and data brokering
- Why on-device computing can be a privacy saver, or screwer
- What to think about Huawei, China and Trump’s trade war
- Thoughts on breaking up Google and Facebook
- Why diversity actually leads to better outcomes
- The effects of IoT on our collective freedoms
- How AI can empower individuals or inspire tyranny
- What technologies most worry Richard most



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