In fact, he suggested, someday every young person will be entitled to automatically change his or her name upon reaching adulthood because of the embarrassing online history left over from their youth.

Searches that Know You

These comments and similar ones are raising eyebrows since they come from the head of a company that has become embroiled in a boatload of government investigations around the world because of possible privacy violations from the unauthorized capture of private wireless information by Google's Street View mapping vehicles.

Additionally, Google has received sharp criticism for its unveiling last week with Verizon Wireless of a suggested "policy framework" for Net neutrality. Consumer advocate groups, which had been part of an alliance with Google for an open Internet, and many Net content-based companies have attacked the plan as an attempt to foster a multitiered Internet in which some kinds of content could be monitored by an Internet provider and treated differently than other kinds.

In this context, other aspects of the Journal interview raise questions as to whether Google is becoming a threat to traditional notions of privacy and choice, or simply reflecting the way the world is evolving. For instance, Schmidt also told the Journal that, someday, searching on the web will be less of an active query by an individual and more a function of software that knows what you want.

He said "one idea is that more and more searches" will be conducted on behalf of the user "without you needing to type." In fact, Schmidt ventured that "most people don't want Google to answer their questions" but, instead, want Google to "tell them what they should be doing next."

'Syntax To Semantics'

In this vision of Planet Google, the company's software would know who individuals are, where they are, what they care about, and who their friends are. Got milk? Google will know and, if you don't have it at home, Google will tell you that you need some and where the nearest milk-available store is.

Ominously for the Journal and its fellow publications, Schmidt also described mobile devices that know you so well, they surprise you with information and news based on your interests and user patterns. The serendipity of finding something interesting in, say, a newspaper could become a historical curiosity that people might read about -- assuming Google thinks you'd be interested.

This vision of the future, it turns out, aligns perfectly with the central cash cow in Google's huge and growing empire -- targeted advertising. The more Google knows about a person, the better it can target ads.

The evolution from search Relevant Products/Services boxes to Google's future, Schmidt said, is the evolution from "syntax to semantics," where the software knows not just what a user typed but what was meant and intended. That will mean artificial intelligence, he said, and Google intends to be the world leader.