From AFP:
An upcoming book about Google claims that Eric Schmidt, who is to step down next week as chief executive, once asked for information about a political donation he made to be removed from the Internet giant’s search engine, The New York Times reported Friday.
The Times said Schmidt’s request is recounted in “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives,” a book by technology journalist Steven Levy which is to appear in stores on April 12.
The Times said Levy spent three years reporting inside the company to write the book, a copy of which was obtained by the Times.
According to the book, Schmidt’s request was rejected as unacceptable by Sheryl Sandberg, who served as Google’s vice president of global online sales and operations for six years before leaving in March 2008 for Facebook.
Google announced in January that Schmidt would be replaced as chief executive on April 4 by Google co-founder Larry Page.
Read the whole thing here. This goes to the heart of something that’s been a bit of a nagging concern for civil libertarians. Namely, that Google could or would somehow “game” their search engine results for its own ends. According to this account, the company denied the request, but that its CEO would even think of it is cause for concern.
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