Google CEO On Names Changes And Digital Indiscretions

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt shared his views on a wide range of topics including the company’s vision and the future of online search. But one of his statements raised the eyebrows of many experts and only goes to emphasize that fears of Google, one day, knowing everything about us (if it doesn’t already) may not be all that far-fetched. Schmidt says that in the future, laws should be implemented to allow kids to change their names once they reach adulthood in order to separate themselves from the records of their youthful indiscretions spread on the web.

From The Wall Street Journal:

He [Eric Schmidt] 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.

I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,” he says… “I mean we really have to think about these things as a society.

Wall Street Journal: “Google and the Search for the Future”

[via Gawker]