FCC Investigating Google Street View Wi-Fi Data Collection

adeelarshad82 writes "The Federal Communications Commission is looking into whether Google's Street View Wi-Fi data collection violated the Communications Act. At issue is a May admission from Google that equipment attached to its Street View cars collected data that was traveling over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks, known as payload data. At first Google said it did not know if that data included personally identifiable information, but the company admitted last month that it did include entire e-mail addresses, URLs, and passwords. Google has pledged to work with the FCC."

Comments

Re:Why? WHY???

[The Salamander]

Access point MACs, signal strength, and latitude / longitude coordinates gives you a geolocation database you can use to calculate your position via WiFi, ie: skyhook.

Make it illegal to spew your broadcasts at me

[BitZtream]

Why is it illegal for Google to listen as it drives down the street to something you're broadcasting into the street?

Make it illegal to broadcast it into the street in such a way that a normal consumer device won't hear it, THEN you can go after Google if they used something to cheat and listen in on people.

Right now they're being investigated because they drove down the street with a microphone and recorded all the idiots shouting out their private info to anyone willing to listen ... without special listening equipment!

I understand making it illegal for someone to use a laser mic to listen to my private in home conversations. I expect anything that normally would not be heard outside my home to be private.

Wifi most certainly is expected to be heard outside the home. Its not something that someone can claim ignorance on, people understand that television broadcasts and radio broadcasts travel many miles, so anyone claiming ignorance just doesn't count as they are too stupid to matter.

I really can't see how you can call google wrong in these case, if you broadcast it over the airwaves, and someone hears it, too damn bad. Encrypt it, or hell at least use WEP, where it might not be actually secure, but at least you can say you made it clear it was not intended for unauthorized parties.