Google f*cks up big time

In a blog post published Friday, Google admitted to 'mistakenly' collecting sensitive private data sent over WiFi networks.

Germany's data protection authority (DPA) requested Google audit the WiFi data collected by its Street View cars. The audit revealed that contrary to the company's claims, for at least three years, Google has been collecting payload data (the information users send over a wireless network) from non-password-protected WiFi networks. A programming error from 2006 was at fault.

I call bullshit.

Explaining how this collection of sensitive data occurred, Google's Senior VP of Engineering & Research Alan Eustace said, "Quite simply, it was a mistake." He explained, "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."

Google outlined the steps it plans to take as a result of the mistake. The company says it intends to delete the data "as quickly as possible."

Uh huh, yeah, sure

Read more here.