Ask the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, what he sees when he looks in to his crystal ball and he’ll tell you something kind of scary: he sees a future where youth will be able to change their names in order to keep their previous web activities from catching up with them.
Think about that for a second – a day and age where your your children would be able to create, basically, a new identity – so that, for example, prospective employers won’t see the pages of links that come up when they turn to the Almighty Google for dirt on their new-hires.
Whoa.
A recent Wall Street Journal article notes that Eric ‘predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites…’
In the article, Eric says he doesn’t think that society grasps what happens when “everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time. I mean we really have to think about these things as a society.”
Am I alone in thinking that this is a scarily crazy thought, partially because it sounds like something that could actually be plausible at some point down the line? The thought that one day, young adults could just *poof!* create new names because of what Google knows makes my brain hurt a bit.
What do you think about Eric Schmidt’s future prediction? Is he a bit nutty, or is he (*gulp*) actually on to something?
And does this mean that Pilot Inspektor finally has an out?
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It’s either that or bosses will have to realize that Facebook you is not an indication of work you and shouldn’t be digging on the almighty google for dirt.
But I spent so long picking that name! They have to keep it or I’ll cry…..