Google Street View Accused of Snooping Laptops, Smartphones

[exfileme]

Google's Street View cars scooped up the MAC addresses of laptops, smartphones and other Wi-Fi devices accessing local Wi-Fi hotspots.

Google Street View Accused of Snooping Laptops, Smartphones : Read more

 

[papaswedine]

waaa waaa waaa... you don't want people to see your wifi? then hide it's broadcast... bunch of damn babies these day..

 

[mayne92]

I'm going to put my SSN on the side of my truck and sue anybody who reads it...

 

[Mastervivi10]

Big Brother is watching...

 

[Guest]

If a homeowner didn't insulate his home to contain his wifi signal, then its his fault!

:laces large order of copper mesh screening:: lol

 

[hellwig]

I leave my damn WiFi off on my phone, if my Phone can't figure out where I am from the damn GPS, I'm not sure the fact that Susie Smith's laptop USED to be at the corner of 5th and Main is going to be any help when I'm looking for a gas station.

Seriously, what's wrong with GPS? Location-Based services are an excuse to spy on people? Really? How does Google's street view car know where it is? I'll tell you, GPS! And street-addresses, those are GUESSES!!! I tried to find an apartment complex a few weeks ago, Google Navigation/Maps sent me to a DAMN INTERCHANGE on a highway. Apparently the apartment complex was under the DAMN BRIDGE. So why is Google spying on peoples networks if it can't even figure out that a 50-year old building is NOT located underneath a bridge over a U.S. highway?

 

[house70]

This practice is commonly used by Google, Apple, microsoft and probably other companies as well. Because of that your mapping application can tell your whereabouts without waiting for a GPS fix that may or may not come in time. Remember that next time you fire up your maps before complaining about it. Also, keep in mind that is very easy to disable the location services on your device.
I don't care if Google knows where my WiFi is located, because that does not mean anything; it's not like they actually crack my encryption and surf the web for free on my network. All they do is associate the Wifi with a physical location ((approximate). I don't care, but if I ever care about it, all I have to do is hide my SSID or change it or both.

 

[bwrlane]

I'm surprised this was in doubt. My mother recently moved from one town in the uk to another. The towns are 200 miles apart. Her htc desire, which she never had before moving, consistently reports the location as the old place. This happens when the phone is connected to wifi. As soon as you take the phone outside and enable gps, the location is corrected.

The wifi, which I set up myself, is encrypted using wpa2 and uses the same router as she had in her old house. The handset has never been in the old place but consistently thinks it's there. What other way could this happen than google nabbed the mac address of the router and linked it to gps coordinates when driving their streetview van past her old house?

 

[ojas]

Damn ads...

 

[bustapr]

If it isnt protected by a password, its public. Its very simple.

 

[Anomalyx]

Shifting up the electromagnetic spectrum, this is like shining a spotlight in the air from your backyard and suing a company that catalogs spotlights they can see. Google has done nothing wrong here, as anyone can gather that data. No law says they can't gather said data into the same place.

 

[mikem_90]

I love how the article tries to paint this as a huge invasion and tracking of users, yet everyone seems to understand that if you don't do the equivalent of putting curtains on your giant picture view windows facing the church, don't whine about people seeing you naked in your living room.

Makes you wonder if Facebook or others are still paying companies to create bad press for Google.

Google has goofed up and I'll rail them about those things, but they have done some things that were very responsible, actually coming forward and letting people know they accidentally collected this info in the first place. A bad company would have not told anyone, and sold the info.

 

[applerocks]

I bet they also collected stay photons of light that bounced off people as they where walking down the street! HANG THEM!