Google invites media 400 to off-record conclave

Google has invited 400 high-profile bloggers, journalists and executives to a secretive two-day 'customer innovation conference' next month.

Speakers at 'Zeitgeist '05: The Google Partner Forum' will include Google chiefs Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt alongside Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble, Yahoo! chief executive Terry Semel and Barry Diller, chief executive of InterActive Corp.

New Yorker reporter Malcolm Gladwell and New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger are also due to attend.

But none of the invite-only audience will be allowed to report on the event, according to Google's promotional material: "All speeches and discussions at Zeitgeist are off the record. To ensure that our presenters and attendees can speak openly, no press coverage or blogging is permitted."

CNET Search Engine Watch blogger Danny Sullivan reported the story on Friday.

"This will be good - to see if you can keep open discussions among 400 people, some of them bloggers and many of them press, somehow off the record," he wrote.

The event runs from 25 to 27 October and will be held at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California.

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