Google Chief Sees Free Cell Phones With Advertising

Google Inc’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, sees a future where mobile phones are free to consumers who accept watching targeted forms of advertising.

Schmidt has said as mobile phones become more like handheld computers and consumers spend as much as eight to 10 hours a day talking, texting and using the Web on these devices, advertising becomes a viable form of subsidy. “Your mobile phone should be free,” Schmidt said. “It just makes sense that subsidies should increase” as advertising rises on mobile phones.

He was interviewed following a speech on the theme of business innovation organised by Italian student groups and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Schmidt also said his company was working on how to allow users to maintain basic control of their personal data.

Google stores consumer data on hundreds of thousands of its own computers to provide additional services to individual users. The company is looking to allow consumers to export their Web search history or e-mail archives and move them to other sites, if they so choose. “We are working to ensure that as long as it is yours, we want to give you the equivalent of number portability,” Schmidt said at another conference earlier this week.