In this article from Time, Did Google Get Off Easy With $7 Million "Wi-Spy" Settlement? the author, Sam Gustin, highlighted privacy concerns over Google's street view cars. Some states have even sued Google for the data these cars collected, calling it "Wi-Spy."
If you didn't know, Google's street view cars...the ones with the 360 degree camera on top that gives you those "Like I'm standing right there" pictures in Google Maps...also collects Wi-Fi data. According to the article, Google collected browser activity, email traffic, and shockingly, medical and financial records.
What I don't understand is why Google is getting hit with a law suite for this...and in my opinion they are being very generous for willing to give up $7 million, because I don't think they did anything wrong. Google didn't hack into any networks or steal anyone's accounts...the info they gathered was via open Wi-Fi networks. That means, either 1) people were connecting to financial and medical websites from open Wi-Fi at places like Star Bucks. 2) People were connecting to financial/medical websites over an unencrypted home network. 3) Businesses were conducting their daily activities over an unencrypted website, which is alarming.
I don't see how any of those scenarios are Google's fault. If there's a lawsuit to be made it would be against any company that's doing business over an open Wi-Fi network. I don't know if there was any data collected via #3 above....I'm betting it was primarily 1 & 2...in which case those people were being either ignorant or ignoring the risks.
In the article, Connecticut Attorney General, George Jepsen, said, “Consumers have a reasonable expectation of privacy. This agreement
recognizes those rights and ensures that Google will not use similar
tactics in the future to collect personal information without permission
from unsuspecting consumers.” The key word there is "reasonable." In my book, if you expect your data to remain private while using an open Wi-Fi network, that's not reasonable.
Google wasn't trying to do anything sneaky and to do what Google did doesn't require any special skills or equipment. You could do it by just driving around in your car with your wireless laptop running any of several freeware programs that will allow you to see any unencrypted wireless traffic....I know I've done it in the past. Heck, at times I've just sat on my deck and picked up a few unsecured networks.
In the settlement, Google is supposed to ... sponsor a nationwide public service campaign to help educate consumers
about securing their wireless networks and protecting personal
information''... I honestly don't know why that should be Google's responsibility.
I admit that Google has done some questionable behavior in the past, I just don't see this as one of them.
I have to disagree on a few points. Most public networks have a terms/policies page that warns you their network isn't secure. To that end you must be understand your data isn't protected. I don't agree with private home networks. Data going from my computer to my router is on my property in my house. There is an expectation my data should not be used/stolen by others. Should I be a smart user and secure my network? Heck yeah! I think google should be liable for criminal charges. I don't the laws governing such things but again I don't see how it could be legal to steal something is traveling from my laptop to my router. I believe it is illegal to steal data once it hits the web so why wouldn't it be illegal in my own network? I totally get that this is a complicated legal quagmire but I in in no way believe it is ok for Google to do these things. I don't even think they should get away from "stealing" data on public networks. Again this isn't an easy one and it would be nice if the justice department could nail down this ambiguous part of law. Oh it is sneaky. I think if they had told everyone on the block what they were going to do prior to driving down it they'd found quite a bit of opposition. And to be honest I didn't know until now that they had done it. So I'd say they were pretty sneaky...
ReplyDeleteI do agree that it would be illegal for Google to use the privacy data that they gathered, but the article said that they had not. The whole lawsuit is against Google gathering the data, which was all obtained via open networks.
ReplyDeleteThe point is that Google didn't "steal" anything. They never hid the fact that they were picking up Wi-Fi signals to map Wi-Fi networks and Wi-Fi hot-spot locations on Google maps...something not only Google, but others have been doing for years. No one would have even found out that they had gathered any unencrypted data if they had not said, "Hey, look what our cars picked up." If anything, Google alerted us to how careless people are with privacy data.
A "reasonable expectation of privacy" should coincide with taking a "reasonable amount of effort" to protect that data.
At some point, the consumer has to take some responsibility for their actions. They can't expect lawmakers to protect them from ignorance in the same way that ignorance of a law doesn't allow someone to break that law.