Have I Got a Deal For You: Google Says It Will Make You Smarter...In Return For All Your Personal Data

At least they're being upfront about it.

Google believes it can make you smarter and more effective. Because, of course, it believes it is smarter and more effective than you or anyone else you know - or about whom you may have heard.

This is not arrogance, it avers, it's math: the combined power of all the knowledge it has accumulated enables it to analyze and predict with a greater degree of accuracy and prescience than any individual could manage.

So why not put all of that power to work for you?

It might make things easier and it could redound to your benefit with regard to health care, finance, your romantic life, a whole panoply of human endeavors and interactions.

But then Google gets to make choices and decisions that you used to make. However badly. And they get to use your information, for a profit. They also get to frame how your life will be lived, because the cascading effect of all that past history will determine the future to a degree that, statistically, it has not done so before.

Maybe that's a good trade. But, then again, with the investment of a little initiative, time and risk, maybe it's not. JL

Logan Whiteside reports in CNN/Money:

Google's chairman says the search giant can create your ideal artificial personal assistant. The catch? You need to give up your personal information.
In the next twenty years, Google (GOOGL, Tech30) Chairman Eric Schmidt envisions a connected world with driverless cars and medical diagnostics on your cell phone.

He says technology like Google will guide people to better, smarter decisions.
"The evolution of Google is to go from you asking Google what to search for, to Google helping you anticipate, to make you smarter," Schmidt told CNNMoney. "You let Google know things, Google will help you. Will you use it? Absolutely, because it will be cheap or free."
Free, of course, with just a little information.


Like any good personal assistant, Google needs to know everything about you. The search giant keeps track of what sites you visit, what you search, and who you email.
Schmidt points out that you can change your Google privacy settings to share less information, and anything you do share remains between you and Google. The company doesn't sell specific information about you to third party advertisers, though Google does anonymously share some more general information about you that allows companies to tailor ads.
As more people keep their whole lives online, concerns are surfacing about who really has access to that information. Schmidt says data breaches are going to happen less frequently as companies update their technology and security.


Meanwhile, Google believes the more you give up, the more you'll get in return.