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The BBC is reporting , along with USA Today, that Google is going to be sued in the USA over snooping, rejecting the appeal from Google to dismiss legal action accusing it of breaking privacy laws. From the article:
Google must face a class action lawsuit alleging the Internet giant violated federal wiretap law when its Street View vehicles collected data from private Wi-Fi networks. The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it would not consider Google's challenge to the class action lawsuit.
The federal Wiretap Act bans the interception of electronic communications. Google had argued that it was not illegal to collect radio communications or any "form of electronic communication readily accessible to the general public".
But a San Francisco federal judge and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not agree and refused to dismiss the class action. The class action was filed on behalf of individuals whose information was collected from unsecured Wi-Fi networks when Google's Street View cars rode past unsuspecting households.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:12AM
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 02 2014, @11:49AM
Yes, there could be a law to break even if no damage were able to be caused that way. Laws don't have to be reasonable to be passed.
However, just because it is possible for damage to be caused by what Google did, that doesn't mean there actually was any damage caused by it.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday July 02 2014, @03:56PM
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(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 02 2014, @05:17PM
Its actually never been determined if there is in fact any law in the US that prohibit what google did. And once again: Google did not TRY to grab it.
They collected it accidentally, while trying to record WIFI beacons. They accidentally recorded snippets of unencrypted data as well as the beacons.
Its a stretch to suggest that wiretapping laws apply to broadcast of unencrypted radio transmissions. This has never been proven in court.
And yes, there is no value in the data accidentally collected, because you get a snippet here and there of random packets that happened to be part of non ssl streams.
But more to the point, even if someone happened to collect a fragment of a message of unencrypted email (who connects to email without ssl), and this data is kept on tape till purged and nobody saw it, THERE IS NO PROVABLE DAMAGE to the wifi user.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday July 02 2014, @05:39PM
So there's no value, but if we take them at their word they caught the misdeed, admitted to it, and 'deleted it with a third party present' because... well the data is nothing. Right.
"THERE IS NO PROVABLE DAMAGE to the wifi user."
None of the governments involved, including the US, agree with you.
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(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 02 2014, @06:57PM
Actually they DO agree with me.
If they didn't, they would order google to pay money to each person who had data slurped.
In many cases Google has just paid off governments to make the problem go away and avoid costly trials, even if there were no identifiable statutes that were violated.
Google has never been convicted of violating any specific law in the US with regard to this incident.
Even the current ruling of civil liability does not indicate that there was criminal liability.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday July 02 2014, @07:14PM
No... they'd pay a fine... just like they actually did.
"Google has never been convicted of violating any specific law in the US with regard to this incident."
They haven't been found not-guilty, either. Though they have admitted they weren't supposed to be doing that, tsk tsk.
"Even the current ruling of civil liability does not indicate that there was criminal liability."
It's almost as if we would need some sort of impartial third party to judge the liability of Google's actions. Time to put on your best suit!
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(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 02 2014, @10:36PM
Never having been found guilty is the perfect definition of Not Guilty.
Tork, stop being a dick. I know you made it out of the 7th grade where you learned this stuff.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday July 02 2014, @11:00PM
Umm... No. Heh. There weren't any charges brought so neither guilt or not-guilt has been ascertained. We're on the victims' side of it here, now, as opposed to just being about law-breakage. (You really seem to have a hard time with this concept.) They took the data and just because they were caught doesn't mean no damage was done.
"Tork, stop being a dick. I know you made it out of the 7th grade where you learned this stuff."
Frojack, stop being a Google Apologist. You're so quick to take what they're saying at face value that you're willing to forgive a violation of your trust even though their entire business model is about cashing in your privacy. This has ramifications for what they did and for what they will do, you can't just hand-wave it away because they posted on a blog that they're so so sorry for collecting information they'd very much like to have on you.
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(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 02 2014, @11:40PM
Guilt is a legal finding.
Therefor unless you have been found guilty, you are not guilty.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday July 02 2014, @11:56PM
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