Google wants to control your life

And they're not shy about it:

Google’s ambition to maximise the personal information it holds on users is so great that the search engine envisages a day when it can tell people what jobs to take and how they might spend their days off.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and the company believes that is the logical extension of its stated mission to organise the world’s information.

Asked how Google might look in five years’ time, Mr Schmidt said: “We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation.

“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ ”

Has privacy become a quaint, foregone notion?

Comments

[RM]

I've read business theories that information will become a primary commodity in the future. In order to use a product you can either shell out cash or provide the company with more information. At least Google is advertising this now so customers like me can figure out whether I'd rather pay with my personal information or cash, but I'm beginning to make plans to migrate away from them...