Google made an annoucement through Alan Eustace, Senior VP, Engineering & Research's blog
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ that they've "been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) WiFi networks, even though we never used that data in any Google products. "
Multiple news sites have reported this
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/business/15google.html
Some are more angry than the others, reflecting the German regulators' views - as they were the one who asked Google to look through this data collection and revealed this fact.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Technology/Google-Attacked-For-Mistakenly-Gathering-Peoples-Personal-Information-Through-Street-Map-Cars/Article/201005315632748?lpos=Technology_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_4&lid=ARTICLE_15632748_Google_Attacked_For_Mistakenly_Gathering_Peoples_Personal_Information_Through_Street_Map_Cars
"The German consumer protection minister Ilse Aigner slammed Google saying: "According to the information available to us so far, Google has for years penetrated private networks, apparently illegally.""
While I don't understand why given the tech-savvyness of Google, how can they not know that this has been happening for THREE years? It also puzzles me why they have to collect this data if they have not been using these on Google products. Would they have been using this for marketing purposes in order to sample people's internet usage pattern in different parts of the world?
This will give privacy activists, government agencies like Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, Information Commissioner's Office in UK to give Google much more scrutiny.
However, I still think Street View will continue to be used by people, as it's an useful tool, especially for people who just arrive in a city and trying to find their whereabouts.
Google is now discussing with governments on how to delete these data according to Channel 4 News in UK. http://www.channel4.com/news/
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