Google CEO: Change Name to Hide Past
Eric Schmidt
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has suggested a novel approach to offset potentially damaging search-result histories: Change your name once you reach adulthood.
“I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,” Schmidt told The Wall Street Journal.
Instead, Schmidt envisions a world where “every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites,” WSJ reports.
Presently, Google will store search data in an effort to provide suggestions to users. When you begin typing words into the search bar, Google provides suggestions based on previously searched terms and user surfing habits.
For some critics, however, this raises a broader question: Why Google doesn’t just erase search histories instead? While changing one’s name is certainly an option (though not many people seem keen on that idea, not to mention the costs associated with name changes), it would be just as easy for Google to clear the search history, or allow users to clear their search history (Google currently keeps search history data for nine months).
However, such a change in Google’s thinking is unlikely to happen soon. Last year, Schmidt told CNBC “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” Google also foresees a time when the website will actually completely guide a search for a user.
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