Google Admits Harvesting Wi-Fi Data with Street View Cars

Google has admitted that it has been recording data transmissions on Wi-Fi networks using its Street View cars.

In a blog posting Alan Eustace, senior vice president of Engineering and Research explained that while Google routinely collected some wireless information in the cars, such as network names, it appeared for the last four years it had also been collecting payload data from open Wi-Fi points.

“So how did this happen? Quite simply, it was a mistake,” he said.'

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