Backlash, anyone?

5 Comments »

• Peter says:

  17 May 2010 at 8:30 am

  Also a good overview from the BBC:

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8684110.stm

• Peter says:

  10 June 2010 at 8:08 am

  Web giant Google faces NZ police probe

  Police are investigating allegations that computer giant Google illegally gathered personal email and wireless internet data during its “Street View” operation in New Zealand.

  Police spokesman Grant Ogilvie confirmed last night that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner had asked the force to investigate. This would be done by the Wellington-based National Cyber Crime Centre.

  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10650853

  Oops. Probably nothing to worry about.

  A Google New Zealand spokesman said the company was “profoundly sorry” for the mistake. He said the collection of data would have been limited by the fact that the camera-mounted Google cars used to film streets and houses for Street View “were on the move”.

• Peter says:

  11 June 2010 at 9:59 am

  “Seriouser and seriouser …” from the Sydney Morning Herald via stuff.co.nz

  Google Wi-Fi snooping intentional – watchdog

  By LOUISA HEARN – Sydney Morning Herald

  Technical details revealed in a Google audit could see the company could face criminal prosecution around the world for collecting private Wi-Fi data, a UK privacy organisation said.

  Privacy International said it had examined an independent audit supplied by Google and believed that details revealed in the audit proved criminal intent and placed the company at risk of “prosecution in almost all the 30 jurisdictions in which the system was used”.

  Google admitted last month to collecting 600GB of data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in 30 countries while out taking photographs for its Street View mapping service.

  “The independent audit of the Google system shows that the system used for the Wi-Fi collection intentionally separated out unencrypted content (payload data) of communications and systematically wrote this data to hard drives. This is equivalent to placing a hard tap and a digital recorder onto a phone wire without consent or authorisation,” said PI.

  The PI said the data collection went well beyond the “mistake” cited by Google.

  Emphasis on “could”, naturally.

• Peter says:

  12 July 2010 at 7:38 pm

  Australia declares Google Wi-Fi snooping illegal

  http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3903613/Australia-declares-Google-Wi-Fi-snooping-illegal

  I should think so.

• Feeling uncomfortable about Google, yet? @ The Paepae says:

  25 October 2010 at 8:05 am

  […] life was so much simpler for everyone when Google wasn’t sending its spies out into the world, ‘sniffing’ and STORING our private data, photographing our homes and scanning our […]