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Google Avoids Fine Over Street View WiFi Snooping, Ordered To Delete Data
DW100 writes "Google has avoided a fine from the UK's data protection watchdog over its admission that it had failed to delete all Wi-Fi data from its Street View cars last year — but it must ensure it is deleted within 35 days or face a contempt of court action. 'Its investigation into Google reopened last year after further revelations about the data taken from wi-fi networks. During that inquiry, additional discs containing private data were found.Google had previously pledged to destroy all data it had collected, but admitted last year that it had "accidentally" retained the additional discs. ... [The ICO said], "The detriment caused to individuals by this breach fails to meet the level required to issue a monetary penalty."'"
Hate to break it to you, but lots of people do this. Just go wardriving with a packet analyzer.
"list of privacy invasions"
You do realize this was WiFi, so that the collected "private" data was being broadcast in the clear, right? There's a reasonable expectation of privacy if you bother to encrypt your WiFi, but running it wide open?
If you send radio signals off your property, they should be "fair game" for anyone who can receive them.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
No, it's more like standing naked by your front window, then complaining because someone takes a picture from the street. Setting up minimal WiFi encryption on consumer wireless equipment has never been a task requiring a "capable expert."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
No, it said that they weren't fined for this latest chapter (the failure to delete). They have been forced to pay enumerable fines and settle even more class action lawsuits. When you break the law in almost every country in the world, you pay, so people should stop pretending that they just got a slap on the wrist.
You have grabbed the most sensational clips you could find (the data involved was random, so yes, it included anything you can think of), that is actually about a different chapter of this saga (this is about the failure to delete).
Most importantly, you left out the part that distinguishes this from other privacy invasions. None of that data was ever made public. No one has ever established that Google even intended to collect the data. No one has even come up with a plausible use for these random chunks of data. I've seen it written that Google themselves blew the whistle on this issue, but I don't know that for a fact myself (the origins of its discovery are missing details).
So, really you are just muck-raking, and in a rather misleading way.
Here are two other mighty convenient examples where Google made "innocent" mistakes by vacuuming more data to track users intrusively and show them ads. Not sure if they're evil or just incompetent.
Here's an example of them being *both* very competent and evil.
Removing borders and decreasing contrast between ads and results to get more clicks and more money from advertisers and users, especially older people who can't see contrast well. I am sure they employ professional psychologists with PhDs whose sole objective is to increase ad clicks by using A/B testing, even if they user didn't intend to click ads, they must be making billions off these "optimizations".
http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentionally-trying-to-minimize-the-fact-that-these-are-ads/
Unlike Microsoft, they do have amazing PR though, with making lots of people believe the all the 'do no evil' BS, while slowly taking over the browser market by beating Mozilla to save money on ads.