Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has predicted that global web censorship will end within a decade, while improved encryption would make people’s internet habits ‘spy proof’.
Schmidt also called for ending censorship in China, as well as other countries with limited freedom of speech by connecting everybody to the internet and making their communication encrypted.
"First they try to block you; second, they try to infiltrate you; and third, you win," Schmidt said in an address at John Hopkins University in Baltimore yesterday.
"I really think that’s how it works. Because the power is shifted.
"I believe there’s a real chance that we can eliminate censorship and the possibility of censorship in a decade."
"The solution to government surveillance is to encrypt everyone," Schmidt added.
The search engine giant has also improved the length and complexity of its encryption keys, and Schmidt described it as a ‘game of cat and mouse’ between the ruling regimes and internet users.
"With sufficiently long keys and changing the keys all the time, it turns out it’s very, very difficult for the interloper of any kind to go in and do that [spy]," Schmidt said.
"It’s pretty clear to me that government surveillance and the way in which governments are doing this will be here to stay in some form, because it’s how the citizens will express themselves, and the governments will want to know what they’re doing," Schmidt added.
"In that race, I think the censors will lose, and I think that people would be empowered."
Recently, Google agreed to pay $17m to settle claims from 37 US states and the District of Columbia that the search giant had bypassed privacy settings on the iPhone’s Safari web browser to track web users.
