14 DAY TRIAL // Google has reached an agreement with a coalition of Attorneys General from several US states, led by Connecticut, about the Street View WiFi personal data collection issues. The two sides will negotiate a settlement despite previous threats of prosecution by former Connecticut AG.
Essentially, in the deal Google has agreed to something it has already publicly stated, that personal information, such as URLs and emails, was present in the data collected.
Earlier, former AG Richard Blumenthal asked Google to hand over all payload data it may have collected. The company refused to do so saying that it didn't believe it broke the law in the US and that it wants to dispose of the data as soon as possible.
Now, Blumenthal successor George Jepsen has dropped the request. In return Google will stipulate that it has collected personal data with its Street View cars.
"In particular, Google stipulates, for purposes of settlement discussions, that the payload data collected contained URLs of requested Web pages, partial or complete e-mail communications or other information, including confidential and private information the network user was transmitting over the unsecured network while Google’s Street View car was within range," the Attorney General Office said in a statement.
Over the course of several years, Street View data were equipped with WiFi hardware that mapped out wireless network locations for use with mobile devices and services. The cars were only supposed to collect network IDs and location.
However, inadvertently the company claims, they also collected payload data from the computers and devices using open, unencrypted networks. This data was fragmentary, but, on occasion, did contain full web addresses, emails, passwords and other sensitive information.
Google admitted that this type of data was present after independent investigation revealed this to be the case. Google says it has not scoured the data itself.
The company is under investigation by the US FCC over the matter. The FTC concluded its investigation last year. Google is also investigated in other countries for the same issues.
Last month though, a coalition of 40 AGs led by Blumenthal went after Google as well. This was not the first time the former AG now US Senator went after web companies, more by means of press releases less with actual law suits.
The move was unsuccessful in that Google refused to comply to the request of handing over the data. The 'deal' now reached has no effect on Google as well since it's only stipulating things that it has already said publicly.