New charges in Oregon claim that Google intentionally collected data from unsecured wi-fi networks as it drove around taking pictures of everyone and everything everywhere for it’s Street View service. They point to a 2008 patent application for
a “computer-implemented method of estimating the location of a wireless device.” A subsidiary claim references the “obtaining [of] one or more packets of data transmitted” from one wireless device to another to help estimate accuracy of location results.
Meanwhile, authorities in Europe have threatened criminal charges against Google if it doesn’t hand over the data to regulators. So Google is handing the data over to regulators. So then the government gets to look at all your data instead of Google, which is…better…somehow?
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