Fergie's Tech Blog

Google CEO: Change Your Name to Escape Our Watchful Eye

Brennon Slattery writes on PC World:

Google is often accused of behaving like Big Brother, and Google's CEO Eric Schmidt isn't doing much to dispel those perceptions. In fact, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Schmidt dropped an interesting -- and frightening -- tidbit: perhaps people should change their names upon reaching adulthood to eradicate the potentially reputation-damaging search records Google keeps.

"'I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,' [Schmidt] says. He predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends' social media sites," the Wall Street Journal reports.

This isn't the first time Schmidt has made parental -- and borderline moralistic -- statements about Internet behavior. Late last year Schmidt told CNBC that "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

posted by Fergie @ 8/17/2010 06:46:00 PM