The root of all fascism is the lack of a sense of humour - Vanessa Swatzell
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Google gets off lightly for snooping in the US
WHILE THE EU has been giving the search engine Goolge a good kicking for snooping on people's WiFi networks with its Street View cars, US regulators have said they don't really care.
US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) head David Vladeck has written to the director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Albert Gidari, saying in essence that there is nothing to see here, move along please.
The letter said that Google stated that the collection of payload data was inadvertent and that the company did not use the payload data in any Google product or service.
He said that the FTC had concerns about the internal policies and procedures that gave rise to this data collection.
"Google should develop and implement reasonable procedures, including collecting information only to the extent necessary to fulfill a business purpose, disposing of the information no longer necessary to accomplish that purpose, and maintaining the privacy and security of information collected and stored," Vladeck wrote.
However the FTC does not think it needs to do anything. The company also publicly stated its intention to delete the inadvertently collected payload data as soon as possible.
Google has made assurances to the FTC that the company has not used and will not use any of the payload data collected in any Google product or service, and that is good enough for the FTC.
"This assurance is critical to mitigate the potential harm to consumers from the collection of payload data. Because of these commitments, we are ending our inquiry into this matter at this time," Vladeck said. µ
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The actions you describe would get you nicked for "stalking" in most countries today
You can also see your house, but if I park a van with a camera directed at your door and windows 24/7 you presumably would not like it.
I can also walk by you when you are talking to your girl/boyfriend, but if I were to follow you around recording your conversations outside your home everywhere you go you would feel a bit unpleasant about it I assume, and if I then said 'well then you should talk in code' would not be accepted as a valid excuse.
But who knows, maybe yanks do think that would be all jolly OK, perhaps they are a bit bonkers (-in that way too)
I know a fair number of people in the US are upset about that ruling that the feds can put a GPS tracker on your car without any warrant though, because 'a car can not expect privacy', and many aren't happy that they actually do that either.
is that if Google did not purposely intend to steal as much private data as possible from unsecure wifi networks all over the world, they would not have built the specific equipment to do exactly that into their "camera" cars
It's worth noting that in the US it is not illegal to eavesdrop on Wi-Fi transmissions. Legally, all radio transmissions are considered public property, and can be received by anyone. The only exception is the ban on listening in on phone calls.
If you don't want Google or anyone else encroaching your "privacy", the keep it private: USE ENCRYPTION, OR USE A WIRED CONNECTION.