Google's Schmidt calls for 'DELETE from INTERWEBS' button

Digital amnesty for reformed badboys

Google head honcho Eric Schmidt has called for measures to delete information from the internet.

Speaking at an event held in New York University, the Google chief executive warned that mistakes made in a person's youth could haunt them forever.

He said the internet needs to have a delete button to expunge any previous naughtiness that could hurt a person's future prospects.

"In America, there's a sense of fairness that's culturally true for all of us. The lack of a delete button on the internet is a significant issue." Perhaps in reference to bashful former fans of '80s synth pop, Schmidt added: "There is a time when erasure is a right thing."

This privacy call is interesting coming from the creator of Google Glass, which could potentially herald the arrival of near-constant recording of anything and everything, and the chief exec of Google, which uses info about your browsing habits to keep its advertising relevant (unless you opt out).

Nonetheless, Schmidt predicted that the world would soon move towards a future where your image is "protected" online. The actual decisions about how this is implemented will be left up to individual countries, he said.

Schmidt was speaking alongside Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, about the new book co-authored by the pair: The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business. ®