© AP/Paul Sakuma
In this photo taken March 7, 2011, Matt Potter of Google pedals Goggle's new Street View Tricycle at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. France's privacy watchdog has handed down its largest fine ever against Google Monday, March 21, 2011, for improperly gathering and storing potentially sensitive data from Wi-Fi networks for its Street View application.
In this photo taken March 7, 2011, Matt Potter of Google pedals Goggle's new Street View Tricycle at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. France's privacy watchdog has handed down its largest fine ever against Google Monday, March 21, 2011, for improperly gathering and storing potentially sensitive data from Wi-Fi networks for its Street View application.
The 100,000 euro ($141,300) penalty - the largest ever by French body CNIL - sanctions Google for collecting personal data from Wi-Fi networks - including e-mails, web browsing histories and online banking details - from 2007 to 2010 through its roaming camera-mounted cars and bicycles.
The fine is the first against Google over the data-gathering, which more than 30 countries have complained about. At least two other European countries are considering fines, while some others have ruled against penalizing Google.
Google Inc. has apologized and says it will delete the data.
"As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks," Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer said in an e-mailed statement. "As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities."
Comment: With all the Human tragedy (Earthquakes, Hunger, Tsunami's..) going on in the world, it's a sad state of affairs when supposed elected leaders do nothing about those tragedies and instead go to war. It is blatantly obvious the world needs a better understanding of Psychopathy.