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Google's Top Ten Anti-Privacy Quotes -- Part 3 In Google's Own Words Series

Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2012-10-15 13:56

It's timely to review Google's public attitude towards privacy, given reports that the EU officially has found legal fault with Google's big change in its privacy policy last March, in which Google forced integration of sixty previously-separate privacy policies on users without explicit user consent.

Google: in its own words:

  1. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place;"
    • Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told CNBC's Maria Bartiromo 12-7-09.
  2. The "Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it;"
    • Said Google Chairman Eric Schmidt 10-1-10 per the Atlantic.
  3. "Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are;"
    • Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told the 2010 Techonomy conference.
  4. "We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about;"
    • Google Chairman Eric Schmidt 10-1-10 per the Atlantic.
  5. "It's a future where you don't forget anything…"In this new future you're never lost...We will know your position down to the foot and down to the inch over time;"
    • Explained Google Chairman Eric Schmidt at TechCrunch, 9-28-10.
  6. "No harm, no foul;"
    • Concerning Google's unauthorized collection of WiFi signals from tens of millions of homes in 33 countries over three years, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told the Times of London in May 2010.
  7. "...It's important to distinguish between "worry versus harm" when it came to privacy online."
  8. "Because we say so." [Google Chairman Eric Schmidt responding to Neil Cavuto's question:] "How do we know you have deleted our information," [when we request it be deleted?];
  9. "We are very early in the total information we have within Google. …The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation... The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as "What shall I do tomorrow?" and "What job shall I take?" ... We cannot even answer the most basic questions because we don’t know enough about you. That is the most important aspect of Google’s expansion;"
    • Explained Google Chairman Eric Schmidt to the FT, 05-22-07.
  10. "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time;"
    • Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal 8-14-10.

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In Google's Own Words -- Research Series:

Part 1: Google Top Ten Antitrust Quotes

Part 2: Google's Culture of Unaccountability: In Their Own Words

 

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