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Edition: U.S. Article Comments (10) Save Email Print Reprints Most Popular Most Shared Google says mistakenly got wireless data 14 May 2010 Whoops! Google says mistakenly got wireless data 14 May 2010 Exclusive: Waddell is mystery trader in market plunge 14 May 2010 Euro at 18-month low on debt woes | Video 14 May 2010 Fighting spreads in Thai capital, 16 dead | Video 3:30am EDT US bankruptcies resume upward path in 1st quarter 14 May 2010 Euro-zone troubles may keep stocks on edge | Video 14 May 2010 Huge BP spill means a high-stakes hurricane season 14 May 2010 New theory of Alzheimer's explains drug failures 12 May 2010 Beer, betrayal, a lost iPhone in Apple device tale 14 May 2010 Exclusive: Waddell is mystery trader in market plunge 14 May 2010 Whoops! Google says mistakenly got wireless data 14 May 2010 Google says mistakenly got wireless data 14 May 2010 Fighting spreads in Thai capital, 16 dead | Video 3:30am EDT US bankruptcies resume upward path in 1st quarter 14 May 2010 FDA: Glaxo, Merck vaccines OK despite pig virus 14 May 2010 Pemex exec kidnapping rattles Mexico oil industry 11 May 2010 New theory of Alzheimer's explains drug failures 12 May 2010 Euro at 18-month low on debt woes | Video 14 May 2010 Stocks slide as retailers, financials weigh | Video 14 May 2010 Google says mistakenly got wireless data Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO Fri May 14, 2010 8:00pm EDT Related News Google to stop selling smartphone on the Web Fri, May 14 2010 UPDATE 3-Google to stop selling smartphone on the Web Fri, May 14 2010 Facebook to hold staff meeting on privacy Thu, May 13 2010 Facebook to hold staff meeting on privacy Thu, May 13 2010 Google's Android takes No 2 spot from iPhone Mon, May 10 2010 A camera used for Google street view is pictured at the CeBIT computer fair in Hanover March 2, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Christian Charisius SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc said its fleet of cars responsible for photographing streets around the world have for several years accidentally collected personal information -- which a security expert said could include email messages and passwords -- sent by consumers over wireless networks. Technology | Lifestyle | Media The company said on Friday that it is currently reaching out to regulators in the relevant countries, which include the United States, Germany, France, Brazil and Hong Kong in China, about how to dispose of the data, which Google said it never used. "It's now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) WiFi networks," Google Senior VP of Engineering and Research Alan Eustace said in a post on Google's official blog on Friday. For Google, whose Internet search engine handles more than two-thirds of all web searches in the U.S., the snafu could mark an embarrassing blow to its reputation as a trusted custodian of consumers' personal information. And the revelation comes at a time of increasing concern among consumers and regulators about the way that Web sites handle users' personal information. Last month, four United States Senators sent a letter to Facebook, the world's largest Internet social network, expressing concern about recent changes to the service and the company's privacy practices. Marcia Hofmann, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the fact that Google collected the data by accident would probably protect the company from liability under the federal wiretap law, which prohibits unauthorized access of communications. "To violate the law requires that the interception was intentional," said Hofmann. But she noted that she did not know how Google might fare under laws in other countries and said she thought it was possible that some countries might step up regulatory scrutiny of Google's privacy practices in the wake of the incident A Google spokesperson said the Street View cars have been collecting the information since 2006 in more than 30 countries. Google did not specify what kind of data the high-tech cars collected, but a security expert said that email content and passwords for many users, as well as general Web surfing activity, could easily have been caught in Google's dragnet. "The bottom line is a lot of personal content is definitely available in open WiFi hotspots," said Steve Gibson, the president of Internet security services firm Gibson Research Corp. He noted that most non-Web based email products, based on the POP and IMAP standards, do not encrypt log-in information or the messages people send. And he said that Google's own web email product, Gmail, has only in recent months encrypted the email messages that users send after their initial sign-on, which has been encrypted. Google's Street View cars are well known for crisscrossing the globe and taking panoramic pictures of the city streets, which the company displays in its online Maps product. Collecting the WiFi data was unrelated to the Google Maps project, and was done instead so that Google could collect data on WiFi hotspots that can be used to provide separate location-based services. But Google apparently thought it was only collecting a limited type of WiFi data relating to the WiFi network's name and router numbers. Google said the collection of the additional, so-called payload data was a simple mistake resulting from a piece of computer code that was accidentally included from an experimental project. Google said it became aware of the mistake in the past week, shortly after telling a German regulator that it was not collecting such information. "As soon as we became aware of this problem, we grounded our Street View cars and segregated the data on our network, which we then disconnected to make it inaccessible," Google's Eustace said, noting that Google was reviewing its procedures and retaining a third-party to audit the software at issue and the data that was gathered. Google noted that only "fragments" of information were collected, since the cars were always on the move. And the cars -- equipped with WiFi equipment that automatically change radio channels five times a second -- did not collect information traveling over secure, password-protected wireless networks, Google said. Going forward, Google said the cars will no longer collect any WiFi data. "The engineering team at Google works hard to earn your trust - and we are acutely aware that we failed badly here," wrote Eustace. (Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic, editing by Leslie Gevirtz and Bernard Orr) Technology Lifestyle Media Comments See All Comments (10) | Post Comment May 14, 2010 8:48pm EDT So let me get this straight a large company found out that it collected data that was freely available because people failed to set a password. 1. I would liken it to having an open conversation with no expectation of privacy. 2. Shouldn’t the article be about doing the right thing in todays “reliable” business climate. 3. Why did you not highlight the facts that no one would have found out if Google did not report it? just a thought newzhound Report As Abusive May 14, 2010 8:52pm EDT Somebody should sue STORYBURNcom2 Report As Abusive May 15, 2010 12:24am EDT How do you accidentally connect to a wireless network and accidentally record all data you receive? How is that possible? Isn’t that like accidentally walking into a bank with a gun and accidentally robbing it? YellowCase Report As Abusive May 15, 2010 12:38am EDT Considering that a there’s a lot of packets flying around in the world from sloppy unprotected networks, and the fact that Google was using experimental state-of-the-art equipment, you have to admit… ACCIDENTS HAPPEN! I think a lot of people fear that Google is the Big Brother of tech and that they will use our personal information against us when Chrome OS goes self-aware… Grow up people, at least they admit to their mistakes unlike the other Big Brother of tech. (Microsoft) linux.is.skynet Report As Abusive May 15, 2010 12:56am EDT What useful information could a moving car possibly have gotten from an open network connection. Even if it did get useful information who cares. I don’t think google is going to be robbing your identity. The only crime I see here is a bunch of people with no business owning a router or computer owning both. kineard Report As Abusive May 15, 2010 1:40am EDT Google is in the business of gathering data and selling it to whoever requests such data. I dont think this is an “accident” as one user stated “How do you accidentally connect to a wireless network and accidentally record all data you receive?” Besides, wasn’t google just driving around to take pictures of the roads? I think they were wardriving on the side. wickedlover12 Report As Abusive May 15, 2010 2:12am EDT I wish people would bother to actually read and comprehend a story before commenting on it. Google did NOT say that it “accidentally recorded all data it received.” It said that it mistakenly collected “samples of payload data,” and that only “fragments” of information were collected. How can anyone who knows how to read plain English fail to understand the difference between “samples/fragments” and “all”? Comparing this to “accidentally walking into a bank with a gun and accidentally robbing it” is just stupid and absurd. Walking into a bank with a gun is an express threat to murder someone if they don’t let you take their property by force. What force did Google exert? What threat did it make? How can Google’s mistake or misdeed, if you wish to consider it such, possibly be compared to robbing someone with a deadly weapon? If you want to compare this to something that might happen at a bank, at most you should compare to something like, “walking into a bank without a gun and accidentally walking out with someone else’s deposit slip.” It’s also pretty ridiculous to imagine that Google somehow deliberately collected this data. If they wanted to collect people’s passwords and email messages for some nefarious purpose, they wouldn’t need to send their mapping cars around to do it. They process terabytes of that sort of information every day when people use Gmail or Google search or any of their other services. If Google wanted to collect that sort of information covertly, sending out cars to collect it would be far more expensive and less efficient than other ways they could do it. It’s pretty obvious that they simply made a mistake and, once they noticed it, did the responsible thing and owned up to it. Christ, people. Get a brain, would you? sheldonrampton Report As Abusive May 15, 2010 2:18am EDT I am pretty sure its because of the recent privacy issues, Google were pressured to act first before they were ‘caught’ out, since the German authorities seems to know an issue with regard to this (the are fining users who don’t protect their wi-fi network). How can you accidentally wrote a code to do what it just did? It just doesn’t make sense, at least now we know they are not doing it anymore. So Google was fighting against China for *free information*, now Google is embroiled with *personal privacy* issues, oh dear… Noobist_2612 Report As Abusive May 15, 2010 2:59am EDT For those of you who find this difficult to understand – new software always has bugs. As they said, some code was used from another Google project – the programmers didn’t check it thoroughly enough before including it in their StreetView system, and bam, extra functionality no one knew about. It’s not only easy, but happens all the time – this time that extra functionality happened to be toxic. Those who can’t understand how software, especially Google-level software, can have bugs in it doesn’t have the basic knowledge you need to even have an educated opinion on this subject. And if there was one company in the WORLD which I would trust to do the right thing with such data, it’s GOOGLE. shadybones Report As Abusive See All Comments (10) Add a Comment *We welcome comments that advance the story directly or with relevant tangential information. We try to block comments that use offensive language or appear to be spam and review comments frequently to ensure they meet our standards. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. © Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters Editorial Editions: Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom United States Reuters Contact Us Advertise With Us Help Journalism Handbook Archive Site Index Video Index Analyst Research Mobile Newsletters RSS Podcasts Widgets Your View Labs Thomson Reuters Copyright Disclaimer Privacy Professional Products Professional Products Support Financial Products About Thomson Reuters Careers Online Products Acquisitions Monthly Buyouts Venture Capital Journal International Financing Review Project Finance International PEhub.com PE Week Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

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