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Google's CEO Warns Kids Will Have to Change Names to Escape "Cyber Past"
Google's Eric Schmidt says that people's private lives are so well documented now that the young will have to change their names when reaching adulthood to avoid their youthful indiscretions. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Schmidt says: "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time." A fresh start from the stupid things you did as a kid seems like a good thing. Now we just need a way to get rid of the dreaded family photo album.
... or we'll collectively learn that throwing rocks in the neighbour's window is NOT a life-tainting event that will destroy your life forever? Criminal records are, in theory, forever, and even killers get to move on when their sentences are done.
Fuck, we use the SSN like it's a throwaway identification nowadays. If it's compromised you might as well become a new person, it's easier than getting a new SSN reissued with your original name.
I am getting really tired of Google's lack of respect for privacy; not to mention their hypocrisy...telling everyone else how to do things while they walk out with the safe through the back door. What a joke!
Funny how that's coming from the guy who's indexing it all so we can find it easier.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
"We're trying to figure out what the future of search is," Mr Schmidt said. “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."
Surely he jests. I know Google hasn't always been the most steadfast guardian of personal privacy, but coming right out and stating that you want your company to become so intertwined with peoples' lives that it will plan their future for them? That's just creepy...
This kind of schlock comes from the same corporate minds that have been pushing for real names and credit card information to be associated with all online interactions. I'd like to go back to taking anonymous aliases for granted again please.
Except that in this case they aren't actually, you know, DOing anything. Evil or otherwise. He's talking about a problem that the internet as a whole creates and would be equally rampant with or without Google which Google has practically no effect on.
It's not an article about Schmidt releasing some new antiprivacy system, it's just a point he's making that the internet makes your past easily accessible to everyone forever. Hell, it's more Facebook than Google who's responsible. But no. Feel free to shoot the messenger.
I have the same name as a Canadian hockey player, though unintentionally, and virtually every result for my name on Google is for him. If your name is common enough and you practice information control over yourself you can almost completely avoid being in Google's system. The real problem is that youths are willing to give out vast amounts of personal information, partially because they don't realize the value of such information and partially because they are stupid kids.
Actually, there is that little box on a job application asking "have you ever been convicted of a crime?" I never paid it any mind because it's easy to say "no" when that's the truth, but some people have to make a calculation. Is it better to check the box and hope they still get a chance to explain in the interview, or leave it blank and hope it never comes up that they lied on the application?
So having a criminal record can, indeed have long-lasting effects. Remember, the question is usually "have you ever."
(As aside, a friend of mine had to answer "have you ever been arrested, which led to the amusing story of him and four other high school kids breaking into the gym because they got locked out during a late track practice... charges were dropped but technically that was an arrest.)
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time
Why, it becomes SOCIETY again. Way back before towns had 29 million people in them and mobility wasn't hyperamplified by oil and 99% of us interacted with the same few hundred folks every day of your life, people knew of the stupid shit you did when you were a kid and repeated it at your funeral.
But they also recognized that kids are ignorant, impulsive, incompetent beings, and they treated the adult differently and got on with the world.
I don't believe Mr. Schmidt understands what society is.
I know he doesn't understand what neutrality is.
I'm pretty sure he's lost the plot on evil, as well.
This is not a new discussion... there have been people thinking about this for some time. In March of 2006 I wrote an article on my blog about it (reproduced below) which eventually led to me consulting with Public Radio on a show they were doing at the time about online public information (you can listen to an archived copy of that at October 12, 2007: Your Exposed Life on MPR
My Original Article 3/24/2006:
I've often wondered who will be able to run for political office in forty or fifty years. People, especially youg people, seem to be so naive about posting things online. For years online forums and message boards have been a place where people vented. Now sites like Myspace, Facebook and others are creating such a low barrier to entry that almost every middle and high school child in the United States has some kind of web presence. What many fail to understand is that once something is posted or "said" on the internet it never goes away...ever. The internet is also quite easy to search if you know what you're doing. This dangerous combination means that everything you write to a message board can be found at some point in the future and "can and will be used against you". Any kind of off-color comment or joke you ever made online, even if your intention wasn't to hurt anyone, is public knowledge.
Employers already know about this. BusinessWeek recently ran an article called "You are what you post" that talked about some of the implications for job seeking but I think the arena where this will really get the consultants salivating is politics. There are so few people who are able to hold their tongue and never offend anyone. In the past politicians have relied primarily on obscuring and making it difficult to find embarrassing things about their past. When today's teens start running for political office these things will only be an internet search away. Remember that posting to that email discussion list about STDs you made when you were 15? How about that time someone on a message board got you mad and you called them a racial slur? You may have forgotten these incidents but the internet has not and neither will your enemies.
I wonder if the politicians of the future will need to be groomed from birth to have no defects and think very, very carefully before ever speaking. On the other hand our society may end up becoming more accepting of faults which would not be an all bad outcome. This remains to be seen but in the meantime those of us who have always tried to think about how what we say today could come back (for better or worse) in the future are going to be much better off than the indiscriminate masses.
I think in the West we had a strange unnatural period where for the first time in human history there was enough individuality and wealth across the general populace that we could actually keep our lives private. This is not a luxury that most peoples and cultures of the world either have now or have ever really had. The only difference now is that instead of being recorded in the memories of all our the members of our community and anyone they happen to talk about it with, it is recorded electronically.
sudo mount --milk --sugar
Sounds like Clarke and Baxter's "Light of Other Days". Societal impacts in the book were huge.
The reminded me:
"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-
know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-
you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-
officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for
forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had
fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there,
and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it
down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the
pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the
other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on
the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the
following words:
("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")
I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to
ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm
sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench
'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women,
kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and
said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints
off to Washington."
Register a fake name with Facebook etc... as that is what we are really talking about here.
I already have friends on Facebook that are registered under an assumed name. It can be a bit confusing at first, but its just like having an online handle in the old days.
It's not like Facebook can actually check or anything. The only problem is that if everyone does this, then no one can find one another, which totally negates any reason for using Facebook. If a few do it, no one can find you, but you just add everyone else that you know.
Anyway I guess if you really think this stuff through, then it is in Facebooks very best interest to straighten up and start enforcing some strict privacy protocals, because as soon as everyone starts using aliases, Facebooks entire business plan falls to pieces.
Or you could show some common sense and not post anything you remotely care about on sites like Facebook, and if your friends do, then unfriend them.
When I interview these recent grads and see nothing out there, I wonder, did they have NO life or did they manage to erase their past?
If I see that the kid went to some parties and got sh*t-faced, so what, many of us did that. But, if I find nothing, my imagination is left to fill in the blanks.
Gosh, first reaction so far that puts the shoe on the other foot. Uptil this post everyone complains basically that their criminal record can come back to haunt them. Oh noes! Being held accountable for your actions! What will the world turn into.
Don't think that your dream will happen AC. Notice you yourself don't even dare to post it under your own account and face the karma burn.
People learning to accept the consequences of their actions and therefor restrain themselves from actions that might hurt them? Nah.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
My maxim is that you shouldn't post anything online if you don't want it seen by your mom, your boss (current and future), and a sex offender. Why? Because all three of those people have access. No I don't care if you set it to "private" that's no security. You post something online, the world can see it, just assume that is the case.
Now that doesn't mean don't post ANYTHING online, just make sure that you only post stuff you are ok with the world knowing. This is particularly true when done under your own name, like on facebook.
People are freaked out about this but they have not factored in that future world is one where the same is true of EVERYONE. When everyone has stuff going way back into childhood online, people will also be a lot more accepting of weird past stuff coming up on people.
Don't forget that it also serves as a record of all the GOOD you have done as well, when kids reach college age they may tend to perhaps volunteer more or do other helpful things recorded online to help them later. There is no system you cannot game for your benefit.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm all for personal responsibility, but you have to make some choices when you're growing up, these choices all happen to you when your decision making faculties are still developing.
I don't mean the particles of experience (mistakes) that lead to better judgement later, I mean the scaffolding of the mechanism is still being developed. Teenagers and Twenty Somethings make bad descisions because the decision making part of the brain is still being finished.
I can't count the number of things that happened before I was 20 that should have killed me, I do know my insurance company dropped me before I was 18 because 1 person can only wreck so many cars.
I was wondering a while back if we couldn't have facebook for teens, then twenty somethings, then grown ups. When you graduate from one to the other, you old comments are sealed like court records. It hit me when I was riding with a cowowrker who was tellimg me the awful stuff her daughter posted on FB.
Kids are going to do stupid crap, there's got to be a statute of limitations for your childhood. Even background investigations and bankruptcies only go back 10 years.
On one side, most of the WSJ readers are not IT-aware. They imagine Google viewers to be able to find references to them on numerous web sites while googling. That is true. But the potential Google privacy interference goes beyond that: Google could perform some data crossing from IP addresses, cookies, web pages, images and exif, map locations, mail, chat, videos, documents, network traffic, sites affluence, news... Google holds underestimated power over people they could use if they want. And so far they didn't show us that ability.
On the other hand, it is undeniable that we will have to deal with privacy - our own and others privacy - differently in the coming future. But are we ready to access that level of privacy, "Google like"? I'm not sure. Not now.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Hardly any employers are really taking minor youthful indiscretions seriously. The ones that are are losing out competitively to the ones that don't, because they aren't hiring the best people. Unless you've done something quite surprising, you are going to be fine:
Talented, but drunk in college? Hired.
Talented, but dressed up stupidly in college? Hired.
Talented, but had sex in college? Hired.
Talented, but made a fool of yourself in college? Hired.
Talented, but murdered someone in college? Maybe not.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
There will be enough links that you'll still be traceable back to your old identity... facial recognition, social security number, address history, and so on.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
People do stop acting like trash. Teenagers who do stupid and sometimes malicious things (and perhaps experience consequences for their actions) can grow up to be responsible adults. I could name names, but won't. That's not the problem here.
The problem is that, given the information now available, it doesn't make any difference if they stop acting like trash. They'll still face all the consequences of acting like trash without having any of the fun. The only solution is to never have acted like trash, and that's something no change of heart or development of responsibility will do.
It denies the possibility of redemption, that people can reform and become better. It takes away any social or professional reward for turning over a new leaf. It will leave a large number of people without the chance to live the same lives, all because of something mean and stupid they did when young. It will create an underclass of those who had a wild childhood.
More specifically, it will create a large group of people who may as well act like trash, because there's no further penalty for doing so. That will make the world a considerably worse place to live in.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Maybe I'm just being naive, but I kind of hope that as our indiscretions become more and more public, we'll stop pointing fingers at each other for their indiscretions. Glass houses, and all that.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
So when you were younger you never:
Made fun of or teased anyone in a way which now as an adult you would regret?
Held views that you now would be embarrassed by?
Were an ardent fan of music or specific bands that might have promoted views of lifestyles you no longer want to be associated with?
Enjoyed songs or lyrics that may have others think you are depressed, angry, or prone to violent behavior?
Drank alcohol before you were of legal age, or attended parties that might give the appearance that you were drinking before legal age?
Experimented with drugs, or you associated with people or groups that may give the appearance that you experimented with drugs?
Said anything that could be misunderstood for you saying that you partook in illegal activities including drug use.
Spoke in a style (IE LOL, or 1337 speak) that you would be embarrassed by as an adult, or maybe you are not personally embarrassed by on a personal level, but on a professional level you don't want others to see?
It's not about being responsible. Schmidt is just pointing out that now everyone has to essentially conduct their lives as if they are politicians and be very aware of who could be recording their actions and how they could be perceived. This is somewhat acceptable as an adult, but it is an unfair burden to put on kids, especially when a 14 year old is really incapable of understanding how putting lyrics to their favorite rap song on their Facebook page may look down the road to someone doing research on them when they are interviewing at an investment bank.
But, if I find nothing, my imagination is left to fill in the blanks.
Er... maybe you shouldn't be the one interviewing people, because those blanks are going to be filled in by every prejudice you don't even know you had.
It's like the example Carl Sagan gave on Cosmos.
Observation of Venus: We can't see a thing.
Conclusion about surface: Dinosaurs!
It seems unlikely that a simple name change would allow anyone to escape their digitized past in Schmidt's vision of the future. How many kids would be willing to ditch every possible link to their former life? How long before a search engine links up a birth name to the new persona? Schmidt also said, "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." If Google develops a fingerprint of a particular individual through his data, a person would have to change every habit, every association, if he hoped to leave his past behind. That or every search service in the world would have to voluntarily decouple childhood information from adulthood. I'd prefer a society that simply accepts that individuals act differently in varied contexts and act stupidly with consistency.
In the not so far future people will be digging up forum/twitter/blog posts that some presidential candidate made when they were 13. A future president could be decided on the fact that /b/ on 4chan was archived.
"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."
The moment Google steps on this direction far enough for me to detect it, I'm off google.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
That's why god made them.
Eventually you out grow 'pretty2u' and start using your real name.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
To all those who tagged this article "dontdostupidstuff", for what definition of stupid are you talking about? Do you mean "stupid stuff" like shoot your mouth off online? Or how about the "stupid stuff" of being a member of a political party that is later rounded up and harrassed? How about being a member of *any* group (non-religious, sexual, intellectual, ethnic . . . ) that is later legislated to be "dangerous" or "stupid", or is just plain discriminated against?
The fact of the matter remains that until human society is tolerant enough to accept people for being innocuously different (where "innocuous" means "not harmful to others"), then privacy will still be necessary. In other words, privacy will be necessary for the foreseeable future. "dontdostupidstuff" indeed.
Nathan's blog
Schmidt is *wrong*.
There will always be unforgiving, vindictive, dishonest, and just plain cruel people. And some of them will hold hiring authority.
But, if you don't want to work with those kinds of people, you don't have to worry about being honest with your past. Why does anyone want to work for a company that:
I've worked in this kind of environment and I don't miss it at all. You shouldn't give up your freedom because other people are jerks. If an employer won't hire you because you committed a few youthful indiscretions, you can bet they won't treat you like a person, either.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.