You read that right! Thirty-seven states have now joined the Google Street View investigation into whether Google’s data collection of private information was legal.
For those not in the know, Google is being investigated because its Google Street View cars were also collecting Wireless LAN information, including the MAC address[slashdot.org] of devices on users networks as they drove neighborhood and city streets.
Attorney general Richard Blumenthal said, ‘Google’s responses continue to generate more questions than they answer. Now the question is how it may have used — and secured — all this private information.’”
Remember friends, this is from a company who’s motto is “Do no evil.” We can trust them right?
Actually, the MAC address are not a big deal at all in this. Anyone with an old wifi/bluetooth enabled Palm could walk down the sidewalk in front of your house and get that info. The issue is more around the data packets being sent, although, with people broadcasting them from their house like miniature TV stations, receiving these packets is not suck a big deal either. The problem was that the program that Google was using, which was intended to capture wifi identifying info for the purpose of mapping out where public access wifi hot spots were, stored the data packets being sent from home wifi networks. These packets are, of course, meaningless unless a) unencrypted (everyone uses encryption on their networks, right?) and b) assembled correctly (“put into context” you might say).
Should we trust Google? Not after your scare tactics, but, if you actually understood the technology, there is no reason not to.
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