Inside Google

When Google executive and search guru Amit Singhal calls the Internet search giant “the biggest kingmaker on this Earth,” he was more egotistical than wrong.

But when he followed up the comment to the U.K. Telegraph earlier this month with the standard Mountain View talking point that Google wants “to build products that are so high in value to the users that this debate about privacy is important but not critical,” he highlighted why people  find the company’s egotism disturbing.

The upgrading of Google’s self-image and the downgrading of privacy suggests an ingrained mentality that conceives of privacy as a just another product in the online marketplace, not a principle that should shape the marketplace.

It is a reflection of the same mindset that created CEO Eric Schmidt’s less than reassuring claim, that “if you have something you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.”