Google CEO Eric Schmidt appeared at his alma mater, Princeton University, on Saturday to discuss the Internet and globalization, Google products that have recently made headlines, and how not to be evil.
Schmidt downplayed the recent controversy over whether Google is fleecing the nation's newspapers by putting their content on Google News.
“We use newspaper content with their permission," he said. “In every case, they have chosen to give us that information in turn for sending traffic to their sites."
Schmidt acknowledged that this Web traffic might not make up for the loss of revenue from print, but “that's probably not a problem we can solve," he said.
Google's Print Ads program tried to help newspapers generate revenue through more targeted advertising, but the search engine giant was not able to gather enough information to make it worthwhile, Schmidt said.
Google shut down Print Ads in January.
Google's information gathering processes, and what it does with that data, has been a hot topic of conversation since the company's inception. Schmidt pointed to Google Latitude as an example of a product that had to balance innovation and privacy.
Latitude, which was released in February, lets mobile phone users share their locations, and track friends who have opted-in to the service.
Schmidt downplayed the recent controversy over whether Google is fleecing the nation's newspapers by putting their content on Google News.
“We use newspaper content with their permission," he said. “In every case, they have chosen to give us that information in turn for sending traffic to their sites."
Schmidt acknowledged that this Web traffic might not make up for the loss of revenue from print, but “that's probably not a problem we can solve," he said.
Google's Print Ads program tried to help newspapers generate revenue through more targeted advertising, but the search engine giant was not able to gather enough information to make it worthwhile, Schmidt said.
Google shut down Print Ads in January.
Google's information gathering processes, and what it does with that data, has been a hot topic of conversation since the company's inception. Schmidt pointed to Google Latitude as an example of a product that had to balance innovation and privacy.
Latitude, which was released in February, lets mobile phone users share their locations, and track friends who have opted-in to the service.
