Posted on 07/01/2014 6:10:55 AM PDT by Enlightened1
e U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear an appeal by Google over whether it violated federal wiretapping law when its Street View mapping cars collected consumers' personal data.
That leaves intact a federal appeals court ruling that the U.S. Wiretap Act protects the privacy of information on unencrypted in-home Wi-Fi networks and means Google can face lawsuits over the matter, according to a Bloomberg report.
The issue stems from Google's Street View, a comprehensive mapping program that provides images of areas around the world. Google has admitted that its camera-equipped Street View cars inadvertently captured emails, passwords and other data from unprotected wireless networks as they drove by.
In a statement, a Google spokesman said the Mountain View, Calif., company was disappointed that the Supreme Court had declined to hear the case.
In March 2013, Google agreed to pay a $7-million fine for collecting personal data from millions of unsecured wireless networks while operating its Street View fleet. The fine settled an investigation of the data collection by 38 states and the District of Columbia.
As part of that agreement, Google promised to educate employees about the privacy of consumer data and sponsor a public service campaign to teach people how to secure their wireless networks. Google also agreed to destroy the data it collected.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Watch out for a Tidal Wave of law suits against Google.
If your home is on Google "Street view". Google may owe you A LOT of money for violating your privacy rights without your authorization.
This was more about the collection of personal data on unencrypted wireless networks, IIRC. That being said, shame on ANYONE who runs an unencrypted wireless network.
I’ve offered to help numerous neighbors who leave their wireless networks open, and most of them take me up on the offer. In this day and age, it’s imperative that you protect your data with every means possible.
The home being on Street View isn’t the issue; it’s whether they “inadvertently” accessed your wifi router.
Maybe so, but probably you'd PAY a lot to lawyers to get a little.
To IT Freepers: Serious question: Is there any way that this information could have been collected by Google inadvertently, as Google maintains?
I’m not tech savvy. I need a password to get into my wireless for Kindle,but my PC doesn’t need it.
Am I encrypted?
.
Lead plaintiff: Horseboy
Everybody should check maps that show views of their house. It’s creepy. A person online can zoom in and identify obscured doors, windows, hidden access through back yards (etc). Criminals can use it to look for potential targets.
They will blur your house if you ask them. I did on mine and it wasn’t a problem. Can’t remember the process I went through.
This is why they will blur it out for you if you ask.
although you would have to be a complete friggin idiot to not protect your home wifi connection
This has nothing to do with your home being on Streetview.
FWIW, blurring out one house doesn’t solve the problem of seeing access to ones property.
Yes it does because that serves as evidence they were at your house.
I had my home blurred out. No kidding, the picture they had up you could see my son walking past the front window (not perfectly, but you could tell it was a kid). It was f’ing creepy. If your home is displayed, you can have them at least blur it out.
I learned the hard way about wifi. When my service provider put the wireless router in and gave me the 10 digit string of characters it called the pass code, I didn’t realize that those 10 digits were just the last 10 digits of the MAC address. Evidently it the default password used by many service providers. My neighbor hacked in and used my connection for downloading copyright material.
When I got an email from the provider I checked it out and fixed things, but most people just use the defaults.
Google needs to be slapped around for participating in data collection efforts on citizens for the Feds and giving them unfettered access to our emails. That and trying to play politics and propaganda machine for them as well. Their latest anti- gun stance is making me look for a better search engine. I don’t wantt o use Bing either because I think they’re every bit as data collective and assist the Feds by giving access to your emails too. Nt that I have anything to he’d but I don’t to be a target because someone in Washingon is bored or wants to make an example of a patriot to further a political agenda either.
I'm no expert, but the Google CARS had a set of special cameras designed to provide an 'omni-view' while driving along. So where were these views 'stored' ?
Were they being transmitted back to Google ?
If so, then they had to be using some wireless connection. This means that as they moved away from some 'connection', they would establish a new connection. This would be where the connection to unprotected networks came into play.
HOWEVER, if the GOOGLE CAM communication software was to connect and UPLOAD a streaming set of pictures files (along with GPS coords, addresses, whatever), then it DOES NOT EXPLAIN why it would DOWNLOAD personal data from PC's on the 'home' network' it connected to.
IF the data (pictures) are stored on hardware contained in the vehicle, What reason would the vehicle even have wireless equipment scanning for local networking anyway ?
A more interesting question is, IF Google 'inadvertently' captured private data, WHY DID THEY KEEP IT ?
“Everybody should check maps that show views of their house. It’s creepy. A person online can zoom in and identify obscured doors, windows, hidden access through back yards (etc). Criminals can use it to look for potential targets.”
That surprised me to see; this nonsense only ends when the bigwigs in government and industry have their stuff put out there. Ican’t believe there haven’t been rapes and murders assisted by these programs.
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