SillyDog701

[Antony]

Remember that back in 2010, Google, being one of the very few big companies trusted by open-source extremists, was caught of capturing and storing personal Wi-Fi with their Street View cars. After being caught, Google agreed to delete those data. However, authorities in the UK found Google's been holding onto some of it for past two years, according to AllThingsD.

In 2010, Google's Street View cars had been extracting private information from insecure personal Wi-Fi networks for approximately three years. Google tried very hard to downplay it, initially denied that it collected any payload data, later admitted it had collected data "mistakenly," Google's latest response: Google would like to delete the remaining data, but gave local authorities the option to look at the data before it was destroyed (hence the data was kept).

And according to Google, it all happened under the radar, and as soon as it found out about, it fessed up, apologised and promised to delete all the questionable data. Turns out Google didn’t.

In June 2012, UK's Information Commissioner Office (ICO) found out that Google collected sensitive personal information from unsuspecting households deliberately, not just a simple mistake as Google claimed back in 2010.

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[James]

Very interesting and upsetting article. I'm using Chrome right now but reluctantly. I have to admit to being somewhat irritated by the wonky way that Firefox works in its latest version. If they would only slow down and nail down the stability issues, I'd be much happier. Anyway... getting back to Google. The bottom line is: I simply don't trust the company. I've read other accounts about their privacy invasions and even considered deleting all-things Google on my computer but it's difficult since they've connected everything and there are some things (i.e. YouTube) that I would like my subscription to remain.

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[Antony]

Here in Australia, Google has, once again, admitted that it did not delete the so-called "unintentional" collected personal data which Google promised it would. This makes the third time Google was ordered to delete personal data.

Unlike in Don's United States, Australian Federal Police found Google breached federal telecommunication interception laws but did not pursue the matter.

News source: Google fails to comply with Privacy commissioner order to delete Street View data (news.com.au 10 Oct 2012)

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