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Eric Schmidt Asked Google to Make a Political Donation Unsearchable

In the past, Google’s lawyers have said the company doesn’t “whitelist or blacklist anyone” (i.e., manipulate algorithms to push a site up or down). Which makes one anecdote about Eric Schmidt in Steven Levy’s new book In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives all the more transgressive. During his reign as CEO, Schmidt gleefully tossed around Big Brother–type bons mots with no regard to consumer privacy concerns. But he had a different attitude toward his own Internet presence. According to Levy, Schmidt asked Google’s search team to remove information about a political donation from its search results. Sheryl Sandberg, a former Google executive who is now Facebook’s COO, told him it wouldn’t fly. Much to our dismay, Schmidt’s indiscretions might be a thing of the past, as co-founder Larry Page takes over as CEO Monday. But it was so thoughtful of Schmidt to leave us one last PR blunder as a parting gift.

Eric Schmidt Tried To Get Google To Hide His Political Donation In Search Results [BI]

Eric Schmidt Asked Google to Make a Political Donation Unsearchable