Schmidt: It's Google Policy "to Get Right Up to the Creepy Line"

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt strikes again.

The creepy line? As many in the comment section wonder aloud, just which side of the "creepy line" is Google approaching?

Eric Schmidt: Google gets close to 'the creepy line'
(Shane Richmond, 10/05/2010 Telegraph UK)

"Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, has described his company’s policy: “Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.”

"Schmidt was talking to The Atlantic about the possibility of a Google implant – a chip under your skin that would track you and provide easy web access. That, Schmidt said, was probably over ‘the creepy line’.

"However, he followed that by saying: “With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches. We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”

"Some might argue that that is over the line too but Google will only read your mind “with your permission”, so that’s a relief.

"Schmidt has a history of attention-grabbing and quotable statements about Google’s increasing, err, creep into our lives. There was the time that 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.” Recently he has suggested that young people might in future change their names so as to escape their Google-able past." [The article continues.]

Your "permission" may amount to nothing more than having cookies on your PC.

One of the Google founders, Sergey Brin, said in September that Google wants to be "the third half of your brain".

"Creepiness" is now the culture of Google, actively promoted by the top management. How times have changed.

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