clipped from: www.pcworld.com The Internet has an ever-growing role to play in allowing free expression across the globe, but only if attempts to reign it in are unsuccessful, Google Inc. Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt, said Tuesday.
Schmidt, speaking in Washington, D.C., warned his audience that the Internet will continue to create public policy challenges as it's second billion users move online in the coming years. One reaction to a perceived loss of privacy and to new Internet users questioning repressive governments will be to clamp down on information, he said.
"[That approach] appeals to people who prize order over everything else," said Schmidt, speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's launch of a global think tank. "Those people exist everywhere."
Schmidt acknowledged that a completely free flow of information over the Internet can be messy, but an unfettered Internet gives people the best information, he said. "The Internet has empowered people in a way we've never seen before," Schmidt said. "What we say at Google is, 'don't bet against the Internet'."
In the coming years, governments will have to deal with a series of questions as more people come online, he said.
The second billion Internet users will often compare the way their countries govern with other governments, he predicted. "They're going to see their government has been treating them badly," he said. "They're going to be annoyed."
"What happens to personal privacy when everything that's created exists forever?" Schmidt said. "My daughter calls this, 'too much sharing in your early life'."