Calls for Naming and Shaming of Google Engineers
July 22nd, 2010 by Geoff
The search giant has, once again, caused controversy while photographing streets in the US, having formerly faced difficulty from European governments.
Thirty-eight states in America have come together to push Google over allegations it illegally collected private data from unsecured wireless networks while carrying out its research for the now infamous Google Street View.
The fresh development in the exploit has been a call to name the engineers who write the codes that encroached upon the wireless networks, according to a BBC news report. The union of states has also demanded to know whether or not Google tested the Wifi code previous to sending the Google fleet out for exploration.
“Google must come completely clean, fully explaining how this invasion of personal privacy happened and why,” Connecticut Attorney General and head of the alliance Richard Blumenthal said. “We are asking Google to identify specific people responsible for the snooping code and how Google was ignorant that this allowed the Street View cars to collect data broadcast over Wifi networks”
Mountain View has before had it out with Germany’s privacy officials, where it was made to turn over details collected from the networks, and has apologised on numerous occasions publicly for the “mistake”.
In this instance, Google said: “As we’ve said before, it was a mistake for us to include code in our software that gathered payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal.”
However, the coalition seems heavily focused on finding out exactly how such a blunder could happen, whether or not that appeals to the search engine.
“We will take all suitable steps, including possible legal action if necessary, to obtain complete, comprehensive answers,” Blumenthal vowed.
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