Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher recently interviewed Google CEO Eric Schmidt at D9. The whole thing is worth a watch, but two statements by Schmidt were truly exceptional. The first is his definition of privacy, the second is his framing of mobile tracking as “natural.”
Schmidt on privacy:
… from our perspective, privacy is a compromise between the interests of a government and the citizen.
Schmidt on (what I’m now calling) natural surveillance:
I’m very concerned, personally, about the union of mobile tracking and facial recognition. Because, mobile tracking is something that can occur naturally by virtue of these devices … biometrics, in general, will make it possible to do facial recognition in crowds.
I should have known it was mother nature, and not mankind, that created this form of surveillance … damn you nature!