News Report #5

"F.C.C. Investigates Google Street View"

Edward Wyatt

11/10/2010

<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/technology/11google.html?_r=1&ref=technology>

Google was accused of acquiring emails and passwords from when their street cars would take 360 degree pictures to put on Google.  They originally did this to help with their Street View Project allowing anyone with internet access to look at anything geographically like they are there.  They did this for all of the Unites States, so someone from California could see what it looks like at a place in New York like they are there in person.  While doing this pretty big project, the street cars collected data on all the Wi-Fi signals surrounding them when taking pictures so anyone could pin point their location from Google maps.  However, while collecting the Wi-Fi data, they accidentally collected data on email accounts, passwords, and more personal information from people that had Wi-Fi.  When they had found out about what had happened they immediately stopped the project to fix the project.  The Federal Communications Commission has been investigating this issue and thinks that they have violated laws by doing this and is determined to ensure that everyone affected by the breach of privacy receive full and fair accounting.

I personally like the idea of the street view photo project that Google is trying to work on.  I think the idea of being able to see what it looks like all the way across the country from the internet is a really neat idea.  However, if they accidently keep collecting data from people's Wi-Fi then I do not think that it would be worth it to have to put stuff like that at risk for the ability to see things in real person.  The loss would be to great if someone was able to steal the information from Google leading them to steal everything from people who never did anything.  If they could find a way to fix the problem and finish the project without obtaining personal information from everyone's Wi-Fi then this would be a project that I would be in strong support for.  However, if they can't find a way to fix it, then I would rather them stop with the project.