Bianca Bosker
Huffington Post
Sept 23, 2010

Google CEO Eric Schmidt went head-to-head with Stephen Colbert yesterday evening to discuss everything from data-mining to China to Schmidt’s “joke” about privacy.

Colbert grilled Schmidt about Google’s search algorithm, and what information the company collects about its users.

“It’s true that we see your searches, but then we forget them after while,” Schmidt explained (he later told Colbert he would “encourage” him to erase his browser history).

“And I’m supposed to trust you on that?” Colbert probed, asking later, “You wouldn’t call that data mining?” Not surprisingly, Schmidt answered with firm, “We actually don’t do data mining.”

Colbert also brought up Schmidt’s notorious suggestion, allegedly made during an interview with the Wall Street Journal, that in the future, “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.”

“It was a joke,” Schmidt said of the statement. “It just wasn’t a very good one…The serious goal is just rememeber when you post something, the comptuers remember forever.”

Full article here