That's all very easy when the fundamental act is "kill someone".
What if the fundamental act is something you consider innocuous like "donate money to charity"? And the charity is at some point in the future considered by the gov't to be a funnel for terrorist activities.
Or perhaps you do multiple searches along the lines of "jewish traditions". And at some point in the future the gov't declares Judaism illegal, targets jewish-sympathizers and uses Google's data to identify them.
The point (I believe) of the "define illegal search" comment is that what may be considered legal or harmless today isn't necessarily non-criminatory tomorrow.
(On the other hand, there's no such thing as an "illegal search" on Google, so perhaps that was the point of that comment - regardless, my point stands)
In other words: Don't use the Google for anything if you don't automatically accept everything the gov't decrees today and tomorrow.
That is, effectively, what Schmidt is stating when he says "if you have something you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place". Which is also why that statement, in context, is just as creepy as Gruber states.
What if the fundamental act is something you consider innocuous like "donate money to charity"? And the charity is at some point in the future considered by the gov't to be a funnel for terrorist activities.
Or perhaps you do multiple searches along the lines of "jewish traditions". And at some point in the future the gov't declares Judaism illegal, targets jewish-sympathizers and uses Google's data to identify them.
The point (I believe) of the "define illegal search" comment is that what may be considered legal or harmless today isn't necessarily non-criminatory tomorrow.
(On the other hand, there's no such thing as an "illegal search" on Google, so perhaps that was the point of that comment - regardless, my point stands)
In other words: Don't use the Google for anything if you don't automatically accept everything the gov't decrees today and tomorrow.
That is, effectively, what Schmidt is stating when he says "if you have something you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place". Which is also why that statement, in context, is just as creepy as Gruber states.