Google co-founder scorns US snooping

Page says public should be given choices on how personal data used

Google co-founder Larry Page on Wednesday condemned US government snooping on the Internet as a threat to democracy.

His comments came during an on-stage chat at a Technology Entertainment Design gathering, where a day earlier fellow Google founder Sergey Brin had a virtual encounter with US National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

A photo of Brin smiling with a robot remotely controlled by Snowden from a refuge in Russia, where the wanted man is in hiding, was tweeted by TED curator Chris Anderson and became an instant online hit.

"It is tremendously disappointing that the government sort of secretly did all this stuff and didn't tell us," Page said.

He reasoned that details of suspected terrorist threats should remain cloaked but that the parameters of what US intelligence agents do, along with how and why they do it, should be public.

"We need to have a debate about that or we can't have a functioning democracy; it is just not possible," Page said.

"It is sad that Google is in the position of protecting you and our users from the government doing secret things nobody knows about. It doesn't make any sense."

As smartphones and sensors synched to the Internet obtain and share increasing amounts of data about where people are and what they are doing, Page said it was critical for people to be given choices of how it is used.

He was concerned, though, that privacy fears and a backlash to online spying would result in blocking uses of personal information for beneficial purposes.

He noted how shared medical information, on an aggregate scale and made anonymous, could help researchers develop treatments and patients select doctors or map medical care.

"We are not really thinking about the tremendous good that can come from people sharing the right information with the right people in the right ways," Page said.

Page also made reference to his recurring voice problem.

"On your show, I kind of lost my voice and I haven't gotten it back," Page joked with interviewer Charlie Rose.

"I am hoping that by talking to you I am going to get it back. Get out your Voodoo doll and do whatever you need to do."