FCC Report on Google Street View personal data mining. FCC drops Google 'Street View' investigation. F.C.C.’s Google Case Leaves Unanswered Questions. The censured Google for obstructing an inquiry into the Street View project, which had collected Internet communications from potentially millions of unknowing households as specially equipped cars drove slowly by. But the investigation, described in an interim report, was left unresolved because a critical participant, the Google engineer in charge of the project, cited his Fifth Amendment right and declined to talk.
It is unclear who else at Google might have known about the data gathering, or when they might have known. Google maintains that the data gathering was unauthorized, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, but the engineer is maintaining that other people at the company knew about it. Google was fined $25,000 for obstruction, a penalty it can challenge. It and the F.C.C. are wrangling over how much information can be revealed in the final report.
In the interim report, many passages were heavily redacted. Privacy advocates said the F.C.C. report was only a start. F.C.C.’s Google Case Leaves Unanswered Questions. The censured Google for obstructing an inquiry into the Street View project, which had collected Internet communications from potentially millions of unknowing households as specially equipped cars drove slowly by. But the investigation, described in an interim report, was left unresolved because a critical participant, the Google engineer in charge of the project, cited his Fifth Amendment right and declined to talk. It is unclear who else at Google might have known about the data gathering, or when they might have known. Google maintains that the data gathering was unauthorized, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, but the engineer is maintaining that other people at the company knew about it. Google was fined $25,000 for obstruction, a penalty it can challenge.
It and the F.C.C. are wrangling over how much information can be revealed in the final report. In the interim report, many passages were heavily redacted. Privacy advocates said the F.C.C. report was only a start. FTC Drops Probe of Google Wi-Fi Snooping - Wednesday, October 27, 2010. The Federal Trade Commission informed Google today that it has dropped its investigation into what the Internet giant has described as the mistaken collection of information from unsecured Wi-Fi networks. In a letter to Albert Gidari, Google’s outside counsel, David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s consumer protection bureau, said the agency was dropping its probe given the actions Google has taken to improve its internal processes. Those include appointing a director of privacy and product management, implementing “core” privacy training for key employees, and incorporating a privacy review process into product design.
Vladeck also noted that Google has pledged to delete the data it collected “as soon as possible.” “Google has made assurances to the FTC that the company has not used and will not use any of the payload data collected in any Google product or service, now or in the future. Privacy advocates expressed disappointment with the FTC’s decision.