Google admitted Friday collecting small pieces of private information people sent through unencrypted wireless networks. The practice mistakenly occurred during the past three years.
Alan
Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research at Google, admitted the mistake and explained how it happened in a blog post.
The revelation occurred after the data protection authority (DPA) in Hamburg, Germany asked to
audit the WiFi data that Street View cars collects for use in location-based products like Google Maps for mobile, which enables people to find local restaurants or get directions. His request
prompted Google to re-examine everything the company had been collecting, and during the review the Mountain View, Calif., company discovered that a statement made two weeks ago in an earlier blog
post was incorrect.
Now the Mountain View, Calif., search engine has gone to authorities at the respective countries where the data collection occurred asking the best way to quickly dispose
of it.