Google acknowledged to state officials that it violated people's privacy when it sniffed open WiFi networks with its Street View mapping cars, and the Google-haters are up in arms about it.
The admission is part of a settlement of a case brought by 38 states, which includes a relatively paltry $7 million fine. The settlement also requires Google to educate consumers about privacy protection.
Google's behavior in this case was wrong, and it deserved to be punished. But it was the activity of one engineer, who had Google Street View cars collecting snippets of data from unsecured WiFi networks as the cars drove by. That's a few seconds of data from each WiFi access point. Not a big deal.
But to hear the Google-haters wail, you'd think that Google was actually the Cannibal Cop, and it had just been acquitted.
The New York Times, for example (linked-to above), quotes Scott Cleland, a self-described consumer watchdog who's paid by Google's competitors and -- Are you ready for this surprise? Are you sitting down? -- criticizes Google. "Google puts innovation ahead of everything and resists asking permission," he tells the paper.
The NYT opines that "Consumer Watchdog, another privacy monitor and frequent Google critic, said that 'asking Google to educate consumers about privacy is like asking the fox to teach the chickens how to ensure the security of their coop.' "
As part of the settlement, Google must set up a privacy program for its employees within six months, hold an annual privacy week for employees, make privacy certifications available to select employees, provide refresher training for its lawyers overseeing new products, and train employees who deal with privacy matters.
Google must also create a YouTube video explaining how people can easily encrypt data on wireless networks and run a daily online ad promoting the video for two years, as well as running education ads in the biggest newspapers in the 38 participating states.
This is fair. Google was wrong.
But tech columnist Robert X. Cringely wants blood. He described the penalties as "Domino's Pizza coupons and a half-eaten roll of pepperment Lifesavers as a token of our extreme culpability."
On the other hand, Jeff Jarvis, author of the books What Would Google Do? and Public Parts, says the NYT coverage is "one-sided, shallow, and technopanicky." He writes:
First, let's remind ourselves of the facts. Google's Street View cars captured wifi addresses as they drove by as a way to provide better geolocation on our phones (this is why your phone suggests you turn on wi-fi when using maps -- so you can take advantage of the directory of wifi addresses and physical addresses that Google and other companies keep). Stupidly and for no good reason, the cars also recorded other data passing on open wifi networks. But that data was incredibly limited: just what was transmitted in the random few seconds in which the Google car happened to pass once by an address. There is no possible commercial use, no rationally imagined nefarious motive, no goldmine of Big Data to be had. Nonetheless, privacy's industrial-regulator complex jumped into action to try to exploit the incident. But even Germany -- the rabid dog of privacy protectors -- dropped the case. And the U.S. case got pocket lint from Google.
There are plenty of serious issues to discuss about Internet privacy, and Google has not always been on the side of the angels on this issue. But this particular case is a sideshow. Google did wrong, it got its deserved slap on the wrist, and now it's time to move on.
"The engineer did this on purpose. When Google learned about the data collection, it took the company more than two years to delete the information -- and the company HAD planned to store, analyze, and review the data it collected from these open WiFi networks."
Hi Allison,
When you stated that the Engineer did it on purpose, are you implying that he was instructed to do so by his superiors? Do you think Google will have explicitly told him to do that kind of stuff. Another scoll of thought would say that he may have done it on purpose but only unilaterally. Could that be the case?
Thanks Alison for the update and also for the link. I am just curious to know whether Google does see this court verdict as an attempt to muzzle its operations.
From the Blog, we also learnt that the Germans did drop a similar case against Google. I also don't know the reason why they dropped the case but I am particularly curious to know why considering the fact that the Europeans have been very hard on these privacy violation incidents.
Paul - I couldn't find an official Google response, but EPIC has an interesting timeline of all things Street View. It didn't have this week's news, but has everything else, including links to the original sites/documents so you're not just taking the word of Marc and his team! (It's linked above or the URL itself is: http://epic.org/privacy/streetview/ ) I'd imagine they'll add all this week's news soon.
I'd argue that this was more than a tempest in a teapot, although it's not a widespread tsunami, either. First, this wasn't a mistake by Google. The engineer did this on purpose. When Google learned about the data collection, it took the company more than two years to delete the information -- and the company HAD planned to store, analyze, and review the data it collected from these open WiFi networks. Now, I've no idea WHAT they were going to do with this information, but given the articles I've read on IE alone, I'm not really comformtable with that policy. Although Germany dropped its criminal case, France and Norway (among others) got hefty fines from Google.
The Columbia Journalism Review has a great article about the settlement coverage and related coverage; CJR doesn't think too highly of many mainstream media outlets' reporting on this story, finding it incomplete, biased, or downright incorrect.
That's true. But the ardent privacy advocates would say it has get to start somewhere and who better to start with than Google who many have singly blame o embarking on campaigns like Google Street View aim to erode our privacy.
Do you have any official response from Google with regards to this court ruling?
I'm not Bolingbroke, but you seem to be making the same point as I am. There are plenty of big privacy violations out there. Let's not get worked up about this very small one.
Why was that the case? The title of your post is " A Tempest in a teapot", do you think it is a little bit unfair considering the extent and ramification of the various dimensions of privacy violations that is now been pushed down our throat?
"Google's behavior in this case was wrong, and it deserved to be punished. But it was the activity of one engineer, who had Google Street View cars collecting snippets of data from unsecured WiFi networks as the cars drove by. That's a few seconds of data from each WiFi access point. Not a big deal."
So why did the Court failed to recognize the fact that it was a mistake by one individual and not an official Google Policy to collect data over unsecured Wifi networks? Can you also tell us the reason(s) given by the Germans why they did not pursue this case as was done here in the US?
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