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White House Deputy CTO, Internet Policy Guru Resigns

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Former White House Deputy CTO Andrew McLaughlin, Photo: Harvard Berkman Center

One of the White House’s top technology advisers, who helmed the Obama administration’s efforts to navigate the often unknown waters of Internet policy, announced he was resigning last week.

Andrew McLaughlin, the White House’s deputy chief technology officer, said Dec. 23 he was leaving the federal government to launch two start-up technology companies, according to various media reports.

InformationWeek called McLaughlin a “major player” in Internet development, since the early days of starting up the Internet Protocol registry ICANN.

His White House post was specifically created for him, where he worked under federal CTO Aneesh Chopra and Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, a reunion of sorts for the three men, who had all worked on President Barack Obama’s 2008 election transition efforts.

“My White House experience has been fantastic,” McLaughlin wrote in an email to reporters, according to Washington Post technology blog Post Tech. “But it’s been more than two years since I started working on the transition. And I’ve been feeling the itch to get entrepreneurial again.”

McLaughlin’s post working on Internet policy, including efforts to hammer out net neutrality regulations, seemed sure to draw controversy. But, he also drew criticism for his ties to his former employer, Google.

Earlier this year, he was chastised for allegedly emailing the company, while at his White House post. The Obama administration has strict rules against communicating with former employers or clients, InformationWeek reports.

McLaughlin previously served as Google’s director of global public policy and government affairs.

But, while McLaughlin’s leaving the White House, he’s not going anywhere beyond that, just yet. He will stay in Washington to start up his new projects, Post Tech reports.

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