A Retrospect On What Eric Schmidt's Said: Future Generations Changing Identities To Escape Personal Broadcasts

Google is back in the news, after Eric Schmidt, CEO recent Wall Street Journal interview where he stated that the private lives of young people are now so well documented on the internet that many will have to change their names on reaching adulthood. Mr Schmidt firmly believes that people one day will be allowed to change their identity to escape the follies from their youth, which is now recorded in embarrassing detail on social networking sites such as Facebook. Schmidt's statement has made us all reflect on the perils of the digital age and how best to live our lives in a world where the internet records and keeps everything - where our every Tweet, blog, status update, photo upload will be stored for eternity. Though this is not the first time that Mr Schmidt's remarks have courted controversy; last year 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."

There have been numerous stories in the media of people caught out by their personal broadcast, like the story of 16 year old UK girl who was fired from her job after complaining on Facebook, that she was "bored". However, this erosion of our privacy doesn't not just stop at our indiscretions online as Schmidt also went onto predict that Google will know so much about its users that the search engine will be able to help them plan their lives. By using customer profiles and tracking their locations through their smart phones, it will be able to provide instant updates on their surroundings and inform them of tasks need doing. Mr Schmidt says, "We're trying to figure out what the future of search is... one idea is that more and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type. I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next." He explained that Google would know "roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are". It could even go so far as to remind us about what shopping we need to buy when out.

However, that's all very well Mr Schmidt, but in spring this year Google was condemned by the privacy watchdogs of 10 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the UK) for privacy violations made during mapping for its Street View and Buzz feature, saying Google showed a  "disappointing disregard" for safeguarding private information of its users.

I hope we and future generations prove Eric Schmidt wrong and that we won't want to change our names...at the end of the day we shouldn't be judged by strangers on the basis of our Facebook or Google profile. We should only be judged by the people who know and understand us.

Photo Credit: Jolieodell