[ttmb]

The full context of that Schmidt quote was that he was warning people that whatever they do, the government has legal (or as it turned out, extra-legal) ways to find out.

"the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And [...] we’re all subject, in the US, to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."

That seems like a good warning, hardly evidence of some nefarious bias.

[fixermark]

Precisely. If you're going to take up illegal activity, maybe don't search "How to do illegal activity" on Google the week before you do an illegal activity.

There are, to be certain, concerns about ubiquitous data being used in fishing expeditions, but a dead body in a hot-tub on a person's property is hardly "fishing expedition" territory.