# Eric Schmidt — "maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" > [!quote] "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time, and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act." > — Eric Schmidt, CNBC "Inside the Mind of Google," December 3, 2009 ## Context [[Eric Schmidt]] — then CEO of [[Google]] — said this in a CNBC documentary interview when asked whether users should trust Google with their information. The remark drew immediate criticism from privacy advocates and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and acquired extra bite because Schmidt had previously blacklisted CNET reporters from Google contact after they published personal details about him that were assembled entirely from Google searches. ## Why this matters This is the canonical "nothing to hide" argument delivered by the man running the world's largest data-collection engine. It reframes privacy as the refuge of wrongdoers — the same logic law enforcement uses to justify expanded surveillance — while the speaker's company quietly retains the data and, as Schmidt himself notes, hands it over under the Patriot Act. It is a foundational receipt for [[Surveillance Capitalism]]: the normalization of mass data retention by recasting the desire for privacy as suspicious. ## Verification - **Contemporaneous critique:** [Electronic Frontier Foundation, December 2009](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dismisses-privacy); [Techdirt](https://www.techdirt.com/2009/12/08/schmidts-dont-do-stuff-you-want-to-keep-private-sounds-like-if-you-arent-doing-anything-wrong/). - **Compilation:** [Wikiquote — Eric Schmidt](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt). - **Status:** Verbatim, undisputed; from a televised interview. ## Related quotes - [[Eric Schmidt - the creepy line]] — his other signature privacy remark.