Swisher and Mossberg pressed Schmidt on privacy issues, whichhave become a hot topic now that lawmakers and regulators on bothsides of the Atlantic are scrutinising Google's privacy practices, as well as those ofother big internet companies like Facebook and Twitter.

Schmidt said that Google actually quashed one research project,based on facial recognition and mobile tracking, because thecompany was worried that the technology could be used by dictatorsand states with nefarious intent.

"We built it, but we pulled it FIFA 17 Coins," Schmidt said. "We were worriedwhat dictators could use it for. Nobody wants biometricsurveillance databases." Schmidt's comments echoed an argumentadvanced by author Evgeny Morozov, who pointed out that internettechnologies can be used for repressive purposes by anti-democraticstates.

Turning to the exploding market for internet services, Schmidtsaid that traditional desktop and PC-based computer systems arebecoming obsolete, as web-based, so-called "cloud services"proliferate. In cloud computing, data is storied in remote serversand accessed via the web.

Schmidt called cloud services "the death of IT as we knowit."