July 1st, 2011
Judge Won't Dismiss Street View Suit Against Google
The Wall Street Journal
A federal judge on Thursday said he would not dismiss a lawsuit against Google Inc. that alleged the Internet giant violated the Federal Wiretap Act when it collected people’s email, passwords and other personal data from unsecured wireless networks across the country.
The Internet giant last year said its Street View vehicles, which collected images of streets and buildings for the company’s mapping service, also included a data collection system that analyzed data broadcast through Wi-Fi connections, and that it had inadvertently obtained people’s personal information.
Google said the original purpose of the system, which it used since 2007 but didn’t disclose, was to determine the location of Wi-Fi connections, which would improve the function of “location-based” applications on mobile devices. Location-based applications including Google’s own mapping and navigation apps, as well as apps created by companies such as Foursquare Inc., which lets people broadcast their location to friends.
Google’s Street View vehicles still collect images of streets and homes but not Wi-Fi location information. The company has faced numerous government probes in other countries related to the matter.
U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Francisco on Thursday dismissed allegations that Google had violated state laws but allowed a legal claim against the company for potentially violating the U.S. wiretap law.
The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, was filed last year by numerous individuals in Nevada, Tennessee, California and other states, who said they used unsecured wireless networks to access their Internet at home and whose homes currently appear on Google’s Street View feature as part of Google Maps, meaning a Street View vehicle had passed by their homes. The lawsuit seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages.
Google argued that federal law allows for the interception of radio communications, including unencrypted Wi-Fi data, except in limited circumstances in which the sender of the data has indicated the data is off-limits.
A Google spokesman said in a statement: “We believe these claims are without merit and that the court should have dismissed the wiretap claim just as it dismissed the plaintiffs’ other claims. We’re still evaluating our options at this preliminary stage.”
The company could seek to overturn the ruling at a federal appeals court.
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