Google's Schmidt: "They Have Guns and We Don't"

Matt Cooper reports from Denver: At "The Big Tent" in Denver, sponsored by Google among others. Today, Eric Schmidt himself, the C.E.O. of Google is here. He's being interviewed by Rachel Maddow of MSNBC. The topic: Internet and Politics. I'll just let you in on what I heard and save the commentary:

"One of the characteristics of the internet is that it changes the power structure," says Schmidt, hyping Google's political involvement—You Tube has 3D diagrams of the stadiums and is trying to get it so you can find out where to vote and register, but interestingly, they haven't been able to because those databases are from the "mainframe era." So far, it hasn't been easy.

Maddow asked about privacy. Even if Google is not trying to be evil, doesn't its massive information hoarding, make us vulnerable to government spying. "There's a problem with the government," said Schmidt. "They have guns and we don't.....We're required to follow U.S. law and we do even if we don't like it."

Schmidt noted that they hold information for 18 months and Maddow wondered if competitors would come along offering to dump it sooner to appeal to privacy-minded customers.

On China, Schmidt noted that the Chinese have a "Great Firewall" for censoring internet work and is so secretive that it's illegal to describe it. "A rough summary is that if you don't say Falun Gong," it's okay. The question, said Schmidt, is whether the Chinese are better off with Google than without.

"Do you worry about cyberwar?" Maddow asked. Interestingly, Schmidt said there was such redundancy in the system that cyberwar would be hard to pull off. "The odds of a major confrontation becoming determinant are pretty low," he said.

On the line from G.O.P. Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska that the Internet is "a series of tubes"&mdash:"There's always a person who's first and there's always one who's last and we found him."

On the newspaper industry and whether Google is hurting it: "We've got a major national crisis in journalism and investigative journalism. And you worry that it's going away under the economic pressure.....Google News has been very successful in driving traffic to sites. There's evidence that this is going to get worse. Ask someone in their 20s how they get there news and they'll say online." An interesting footnote: Google News is not profitable at all.

On election security and possible breaches of voting machines, Schmidt said he thought a small change in the current regime, paper records, would be enough to provide security.

On broadband policy, Schmidt lamented that the United States is way behind countries like Japan and France in access to high-speed broadband. "We invented this and we're not ahead," he noted.

Matt Cooper

Want more from Denver? Check these stories out:
-- Why Does Everyone Want In on the Act?
-- I'm T. Boone Pickens and This Will Save America.
-- The Election According to Mr. Burns.
-- The Portfolio.com Capital Index.

And get ready for the Republican convention in St. Paul with these:
-- Where to Eat in the Twin Cities.
-- How to Party Like a Rockstar TV Star With Republicans.