Finally some good news in what’s been a somewhat difficult week for Google. With international resentment to its Street View vans and online travel services lobbying against its merger with travel software company ITA, the end of the US Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into its privacy infringements is a small weight of its shoulders.
Last May, Google admitted that in the process of collecting data for the site’s Street View service, it had also snatched up private user information – and last week, further confessed that this had included entire e-mails and passwords.
But the FTC is reportedly satisfied with Google’s attempts at righting these wrongs. The company announced new plans for ensuring that its inadvertent spying would cease to be an issue, bolstering its privacy training for all staff in addition to hiring a new director and increasing the size and power of the department.
And that’s enough for the FTC. “Because of these commitments, we are ending our inquiry into this matter at this time,” director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection David Vladeck wrote in a letter to the company. He went on to note that he hopes Google will “continue its dialogue with the FTC about how best to protect consumer privacy as it develops its products and services.”
It’s mildly surprising that the investigation was dropped just days after heightened complaints from European countries and Google admitted it was accessing more than it originally thought. Still, this is a small victory for a company that is facing various lawsuits in Europe as well as an investigation from the US Department of Justice concerning its acquisition of ITA. One down, many to go.
thats bull…you don’t design a program that steals info on purpose and call it an accident and just apologize…crooks
Nick and Dude are completely wrong. First off Google street cars are for driving around and taking pictures. How, all of a sudden are they accessing this data on wifi including passwords?
You do realize that talking on a cordless phone is sending a transmission in a similar way? It is illegal to ease drop on a phone conversation why would it be legal to do the same with your wifi?
The Federal Communications Commission http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs2-wire.htm
BoB
Phone conversations have a bunch of special laws that protect them but that kind of privacy is not extended to all other forms of communication. Should it be against the law to photograph someone wearing a t-shirt with their login names passwords on it?
My point exactly, if phone conversations have laws protecting them, why shouldn't WiFi? Sounds like the law falling behind technology.
You are comparing apples and oranges you don't need a special device to see someones shirt (a camera is not even necessary), you need a device to capture WiFi data. I'm pretty sure also that there is an expectation of privacy that your ignoring, after all people don't go about with their passwords on shirts now do they?
Google street cars also collect (or, did collect) information about wifi hotspots being broadcast. It was during the collection of this information that the unencrypted "personal" information was collected.
The FTC is about as useless as the TSA
mask-your-ip.it.tc
I don't see how this is that big of an issue. They didn't record any private information. If you broadcast information in the clear (i.e. using unsecured WiFi), your information is no longer private. Period.
Oh, so if you have an unsecured wifi connection and I go in and take a bunch of financial information off of your computer, I haven't done anything wrong because it's not private information?
If I'm openly transmitting that information through the air, no, you've done nothing wrong by simply collecting that information. Using it to steal my identity, of course, would be wrong.
I have to agree with nick. The first thing that comes to mind is that the only way for them to magically collect data is if you are dumb enough to leave your network open. I mean reading instructions and doing a little research on protecting your wireless network isn't rocket science and though wpa 2/wep are no longer iron clad, unless someone is really intent on stealing your identity I doubt they will sit in a jeep outside your house trying to crack the encryption, especially when they have better things to do.
I mean any sane, normal, thinking, feeling, human being wouldn't walk around outside with their drivers license number, ssn, and name plastered on a t-shirt. Yet for some reason people think that it is any less of a stupid idea to leave your wi-fi open to the world.
Cracking the encryption on someone's wireless network is a completely different story, and definitely wrong. But simply collecting information from an unencrypted wireless network, it's essentially the same as if two people are having a shouting match in the middle of the street and you happen to hear what they're saying.