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My Location the Next Google Privacy Controversy?
theodp writes "While Google boasts one of its Privacy Principles is making the collection of personal information transparent, even techies are left guessing about what's going on behind the scenes of certain products. The American Dictator points out that Google's Wi-Fi collection efforts don't stop with its Street View cars, offering up this explanation of Google's My Location: 'When you allow Google to "know your location," what you are really agreeing to is to send to Google's computers your Wi-Fi environment — not only the name of the Wi-Fi hotspot you are logged into, but also the names and signal strengths of every Wi-Fi hotspot around you. In other words, the same things that those Google Street View cars were sucking up as they drove by your house.' So, will changes in privacy attitude prompt changes in Latitude?"
Seriously, this is what, the 3rd or 4th blatantly misleading submission from theodp in the past two weeks?
The issue was not that Google is collecting WiFi SSIDs, signal strength, or anything like that. This is public information as far as I'm concerned (much like the street number on the front of your house) and if they are correlating that data with a mapping application, I doubt there are any laws in North America anyway that would stop them from doing so. The reason they're in trouble now is that they were also logging unencrypted traffic, which probably runs afoul of wiretapping laws pretty much everywhere.
Probably too much to hope that /. editors will stop rubber-stamping anything and everything with an attention grabbing headline, but this is getting to be too much.
LIsten up, if me and my mate, Mr Dim from Dimtown, have told you this once, we have told you it a hundred times: if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.
We don't see the problem.
Kind Regards
Mr Stupid Speaks