Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, has described China as "the most egregious" example of a nation attempting to control the internet, as he hinted at expanding the company's multimillion-pound transition fund towards British publishers to boost revenues from digital.
In an interview with the Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger at the Big Tent Activate Summit in New Delhi, India, on Thursday, Schmidt spoke of his concern about reports from the New York Times last month that its computers had been invaded by Chinese hackers.
"As the internet has emerged in many of these different countries, there's quite a few countries that have no laws that pertain to the internet at all and those internets tend to be free and open with almost anything goes," he said.
"There are other governments that try very dramatically to censor or control the internet, with China being the most egregious example."
Asked about his views on the privacy of citizens online, Schmidt gave the example of Chinese dissidents who may wish to speak in confidence to a newspaper to reveal sensitive information.
"If I was giving you important information about something that was very very sensitive and if it were revealed that I were leaking this to you I would lose my job, my family would be killed or I would be exiled. This does occur – I was just in North Korea, for heavens sakes," he said.
"You take notes as a journalists and you write those down – but where do those notes go? You don't have to answer for the Guardian, but how would you feel if the Chinese had just hacked into the New York Times and gone into all of the servers of the New York Times … how would you feel if you were a Chinese dissident? You'd be worried, if you had indeed done that," he told the summit.
"These are some of the problems that happen when everyone's connected ... My point here is that this [ability to intrude on privacy] is going to happen because the value of the internet is so profound and positive, but we've got to recognise the issues and get ahead of it by discussion."
