Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Google's Collection of Unsecured Wi-Fi Data Prompts Investigations

In May, the Energy and Commerce Committee of US House of Representative sent a letter to Google inquiring about the "huge amounts of data sent over private Wi-Fi networks while documenting the streets of our country for its Google Street View Product." The letter expressed specific concern that "Google did not disclose until long after the fact that consumers' Internet use was being recorded, analyzed and perhaps profiled." Google's response indicates that it "mistakenly" collected the data and that "the data has never been used in any Google product or service, nor do we intend to use it."

According to a Jurist Legal News & Research, Google data collection is also a subject of investigation in Australia and Canada; and several other nations have also become interested in data collected by Google.