It turns out Google’s Street View cars found out more about Internet users than previously acknowledged. Last Friday, the company said the cars, which roam the world taking pictures for its location-based applications, scarfed up e-mail addresses, URLs and passwords from residential Wi-Fi networks they passed by in dozens of countries.
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Some privacy advocates say Google’s admission highlights a common attitude among high-tech firms that rush to get out new technologies without enough consideration of how consumers may be harmed in the process.
“First they said they didn’t gather data; then they said they did, but it was only fragments; and today they finally admit entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords,” said John Simpson, director of consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog. “Maybe some Google executives are beginning to get it: privacy matters. The reality, though, is that the company’s entire culture needs to change.”
Source: Google ‘mortified’ that Street View cars scarfed up e-mail, passwords; privacy criticism intensifies
If they’re stealing and abusing data from people, what are they doing with the data people give them willingly?
Think: Gmail, Buzz, Maps, Docs, Search, API, and on and on!
Oh, and let this be another reminder to secure your wireless networks, OK?
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