Dette er efterhånden en gammel historie, men jeg synes alligevel at jeg vill ekommentere den inden den går helt i glemmebogen.
Google today said it will stop collecting Wi-Fi network data from its Street View cars, after an investigation from the German Data Protection Authority (DPA) found the search company was also collecting personal data about user behavior on these public hotspots.
Google’s Street View cars weren’t only taking 360-degree images of our streets for use on Google Maps, but they were also pulling publicly broadcast SSID and MAC information from Wi-Fi hotspots.
"It’s now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) WiFi networks, even though we never used that data in any Google products," Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President of Engineering and Research said today.
"So how did this happen? Quite simply, it was a mistake," Eustace said. "In 2006 an engineer working on an experimental WiFi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast WiFi data. A year later, when our mobile team started a project to collect basic WiFi network data like SSID information and MAC addresses using Google’s Street View cars, they included that code in their software–although the project leaders did not want, and had no intention of using, payload data."
Kilde: Tim Conneally @ Betanews.com
Det kommer vel egentlig ikke som den helt store overraskelse, at Google på denne måde leger Big Brother, når man tænker på hvor villig virksomheden er til at benytte teknologier, som går lige til grænsen i forhold til brugernes private oplysninger.
I virkeligheden er det ret sørgeligt, at en virksomhed, som i den grad forsøger at profilere sig som værende moralens vogter gentagne gange kommer i fedtefadet på grund af dubiøse handlinger. Der kan efterhånden ikke herske nogen tvivl om at Goggle, ligesom alle andre store virksomheder, ønsker at dominere hele den sfære i hvilken de bevæger sig. Forhåbentlig begyder myndihederne snart at kigge søgegiganten efter i sømmene.