Google set for probes on data harvesting [Financial Times]
After Google announced late last week that it was backtracking on claims that it had not collected wi-fi traffic from open networks using its Street View fleet, it appears that regulatory agencies in several European countries as well as the U.S. plan to launch investigations of the data collection. Google initially told privacy officials in Germany, in response to questions about its network monitoring activity, that it was merely collecting the locations and MAC addresses of unsecured wireless routers. Google indicated on Friday that it subsequently discovered the data collection was more intrusive, and the company collected network packets from the wireless routers that totaled over 600 GB of data.
According to the Financial Times, the German commissioner for data protection has already called for an investigation of Google's activities and the British Information Commissioner's office has alleged that Google's data collection broke that country's data protection act. The Financial Times also indicated that an investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission was also likely.
For it's part, Google has indicated that it plans to destroy the network data collected by its Street View fleet. Users with broadband connected to wireless routers can protect their network data by using a secure encryption protocol like WPA or WPA-2.
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