This meme is based on a few isolated and misinterpreted quotations. Let's take an earnings call, where we would expect him to be showing his true colors as someone who purportedly doesn't care about privacy:
Q: How does Google think generally about leveraging user data, both to better target ads and how to stay competitive with those like Facebook and Microsoft and Yahoo that are leveraging data possibly more so than what Google is today? And I think this is particularly relevant for using search data for your display business but, would love to get your thoughts on that.
Eric Schmidt: "We have a pretty strong opinion that we're not going to do very much of it. The reason is that we take our end-user data privacy incredibly seriously and the trust that people have with respect to giving us that information, both their search histories as well as other pieces of information, they get very upset, very, very quickly if we, in their view, misuse it.
"So, what we typically tell people is we're not going to do the kinds of things that you could do with this, in particular use it to generate sort of strange ads against your history and things like that, without your explicit permission. And we probably, in many cases, won't do it forever."
"... And we probably, in many cases, won't do it forever."
You will have to excuse me for not being terribly excited about the words "probably" and "in many cases".
He sounds to me like someone who is saying exactly what he thinks people want him to say, and then throwing in a couple of qualifiers that pretty much leave the company open to doing whatever they decide to do in the future. If someone calls Him on it, well he did say "probably", and "in many cases"
Now I don't know Eric Schmidt from Adam, but I did watch the interview where he said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." (yes, I listened to it in context, the quote is not the only part I heard). While that quote perhaps does not mean all that people have made it out to mean, I still find it deeply disturbing -- especially coming from the (now "former") CEO of a company which is in such a great position to abuse their collected information if they decide to.
Yes, perhaps Schmidt was only trying to cover the company's collective rear end for when federal laws require them to disclose information, but if so, He has done an extremely poor job of convincing me (and obviously many others in the world) that such was his intention.
> You will have to excuse me for not being terribly excited about the words "probably" and "in many cases".
He said categorically that it would not happen without the user's permission. And then went on to further say that it probably would not happen at all (even with the user's permission). The last sentence was further limiting the scope of what Google will do, not expanding it.
> He sounds to me like someone who is saying exactly what he thinks people want him to say
He is talking to investors, not privacy advocates. He is saying the opposite of what investors want to hear. Investors would want him to say "we are sitting on a high-value treasure trove of marketing information, and of course we will use it to enhance the value of our ads products whenever we can." Instead he is saying exactly the opposite of what would increase Google's perceived value.
> Yes, perhaps Schmidt was only trying to cover the company's collective rear end for when federal laws require them to disclose information, but if so, He has done an extremely poor job of convincing me (and obviously many others in the world) that such was his intention.
What about the fact that his very next sentence was: "If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."
Google is not the only search engine that keeps logs, and any US company that keeps logs is subject to government subpoenas. This is reality. If Eric or any other search engine CEO told you differently, they'd be lying to you.
> > You will have to excuse me for not being terribly excited about the words "probably" and "in many cases".
> He said categorically that it would not happen without the user's permission. And then went on to further say that it probably would not happen at all (even with the user's permission). The last sentence was further limiting the scope of what Google will do, not expanding it.
That totally depends on how you read that entire (2 short paragraph) response -- you can take it with an optimists viewpoint and say he really is saying they have no intention of ever abusing that information. But I'm sorry, if that truly was his intent he chose his words very poorly. "And we probably, in many cases, won't do it forever." can easily be taken to be applied to his entire comment, and that doesn't inspire confidence in me that I can take his comments for what I perceive he wants me to take them to mean.
Yeah, I'd like to live in a world where I can take the word of business executives at face value, and never be concerned that what they appear to be saying may not be what they are actually saying. However, life experience has shown that the world I live in is not such a world.
> > He sounds to me like someone who is saying exactly what he thinks people want him to say
> He is talking to investors, not privacy advocates. He is saying the opposite of what investors want to hear. Investors would want him to say "we are sitting on a high-value treasure trove of marketing information, and of course we will use it to enhance the value of our ads products whenever we can." Instead he is saying exactly the opposite of what would increase Google's perceived value.
Regardless of the audience that was immediately before him, Schmidt knows his words will be out in public view. I was not arguing that he was telling investors what they wanted to hear, I was arguing that he could be telling users of Google's search engine what they want to hear. If you are trying to project the message that Google won't abuse data they've collected about you regarding your browsing habits, as a Google executive, you will try to make it sound like that is true no matter what forum you are in -- if there is significant chance that the public will hear about it. I still say there is a decent chance of Schmidt wanting to have it both ways here -- wanting the public to believe Google won't abuse the data, but still leaving the possibility that they can change their policy in the future (while, of course, intending the public to believe that that will never ever happen).
> > Yes, perhaps Schmidt was only trying to cover the company's collective rear end for when federal laws require them to disclose information, but if so, He has done an extremely poor job of convincing me (and obviously many others in the world) that such was his intention.
> What about the fact that his very next sentence was: "If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say here. I wasn't arguing that Schmidt was not trying to cover Google's legal responsibilities (in fact, I totally agree that he was trying to do that). I was arguing that he has not convinced me that covering said responsibilities was the only thing he was trying to do (I put the "only" in the first part of the first sentence, I should have also said "only intention" at the end of the second sentence). Bottom line is I am not convinced that Schmidt has zero intentions of allowing Google to exploit data gathered about individual's use of Google's search engine (and anything they can tie that use to) for financial gain.
Hold on a minute, you think that asking for, let's say a public data retention policy is just a meme?
For a big company, "we take our end-user data privacy incredibly seriously..." is generally the mandatory first sentence in a 30 pages document. This is not just about ads.
