“The Federal Communications Commission is investigating whether Google Inc. broke federal laws when its street-mapping service collected consumers’ personal information, joining a lengthy list of regulators and lawmakers probing what Google says was the inadvertent harvesting of private data sent over wireless networks,” Amy Schatz and Amir Efrati report for The Wall Street Journal.
“Key Republicans and Democrats in Congress have indicated that the privacy issues raised by Google’s Street View data collection could be a factor when lawmakers consider new Internet privacy legislation next year,” Schatz and Efrati report. “Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, a senior Republican lawmaker, suggested last week on C-SPAN that Google’s data collection wasn’t accidental and that it was “something to look at.'”
Schatz and Efrati report, “Regulators around the world and several U.S. state attorneys general are also investigating Google’s possible privacy breach. The regulators are looking into whether Google street-mapping teams collected and stored passwords, emails and other personal information collected from unprotected wireless Internet networks around the world.”
Full article here.
Collect those passwords- you never know when you might need to use your laptop while visiting Poland.
Google = Gestapo
I always felt the street view was a little creepy.
just my $0.02
What so people driving down public streets is creepy?
Now gleaning passwords and stuff, as you are doing it is something different.
But pictures, old ones at that?
Living a a paranoid existence courtesy of a dip stick like Dick Cheney is creepy.
TSA feel ups and homeland insecurity measures isn’t creepy?
Guess you’ll just have to save up and live on a private estate to feel secure that no one can see your abode.
@ KillBill
Hackers have called it “war driving” for a long time. And for Google to try to play the ingenue about it is absurd.
Street View effort by goog is nothing more than an intelligence gathering operation. Anyone care to guess to whom they sell the info?
@doc
DHC,FBI,CIA,etc.?