Google ‘mistakenly’ spied on Wi-Fi web surfing
It was reported last month that Google was mapping MAC addresses (uniquely identifiable hardware ID) over Wi-Fi. Google has now revealed that they were collecting web surfing traffic as well. Google initially denied collecting this data but an audit from the German Data Protection Authority (DPA) forced Google to reexamine their own practices which lead to this latest revelation.
More coverage at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Updated 5/22/2010 – Robert Graham explains the technical details and is of the opinion that this may have been an honest mistake. That may or may not be the case, but it shouldn’t entirely excuse this sort of behavior and a large company like Google has to be responsible for its own mistakes. Graham also feels that users should protect themselves with encryption rather than punish Google. I agree with the first part, but I disagree with the second part. Just because a user doesn’t know how to protect themselves doesn’t give Google the right to snoop on them. Furthermore, we really don’t have alternative while traveling because nearly all hotspot operators refuse to enable encryption.
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