Google balances privacy, reach
Published: July 14, 2005, 4:00 AM PDT
By Elinor Mills
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
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Google CEO Eric Schmidt doesn't reveal much about himself on his home page.
But spending 30 minutes on the Google search engine lets one discover that Schmidt, 50, was worth an estimated $1.5 billion last year. Earlier this year, he pulled in almost $90 million from sales of Google stock and made at least another $50 million selling shares in the past two months as the stock leaped to more than $300 a share.
He and his wife Wendy live in the affluent town of Atherton, Calif., where, at a $10,000-a-plate political fund-raiser five years ago, presidential candidate Al Gore and his wife Tipper danced as Elton John belted out "Bennie and the Jets."
Schmidt has also roamed the desert at the Burning Man art festival in Nevada, and is an avid amateur pilot.
That such detailed personal information is so readily available on public Web sites makes most people uncomfortable. But it's nothing compared with the information Google collects and doesn't make public.
