Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt sat down on Sunday with CNN's Fareed Zakaria for a segment on "Fareed Zakaria GPS" to talk innovation, Android tablets versus Apple's iPad, and the future of technology.
Schmidt also commented on the data that users' phones store and how that data can serve the user.
Said Schmidt:
Today, your phone knows who you are, where you are, where -- where you're going, to some degree, because it can see your path. And with that and with your permission, it's possible for software and software developers to predict where you're going to go, to suggest people you should meet, to suggest activities and so forth. So ultimately what happens is the mobile phone does what it does best, which is remember everything and make suggestions. And then you can be just a better human and have a good time.
Schmidt explained that this data retention will make the user's experience increasingly more personal as time goes on.
"The computer will suggest things that you might be interested in," Schmidt said. "Since I'm a history buff, if I'm walking down here in the street, it will tell me the history of the area or it will tell me about something that I might be interested in."
Google, along with Apple, has been at the center of a recent controversy about cellphone location tracking. Smartphones built on Google's and Apple's platforms were found to be storing users' precise locations in relation to cell phone towers--without the users' knowledge. While some pointed out that such data creates a highly customized mobile experience, others argued that companies should better inform their customers about the kinds of data collected and the reasons for collecting it.
Schmidt himself has a habit of making statements about privacy that sound troubling to some, given Google's highly publicized privacy blunders. Last October, he jokingly said, "The Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it."
Watch Schmidt's entire interview with Fareed Zakaria in the video (below), then read on for a look back at Eric Schmidt's most controversial statements about privacy.
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