Google got into hot water last year when German regulators called for an audit of the WiFi data collected by the Street View cars. The audit revealed that data being transmitted via open WiFi networks were being collected in addition to images. Google said the collection of the WiFi data was unintentional and apologized for the mistake.
In response, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Google for violation of US federal and state anti-wiretap laws. Google filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the collection of the data was unintentional and that the unencrypted data were being transmitted over public airwaves and therefore not protected by anti-wiretap laws.
US District Judge James Ware disagreed:
“The Court finds that Plaintiffs plead facts sufficient to state a claim for violation of the Wiretap Act. In particular, Plaintiffs plead that Defendant intentionally created, approved of, and installed specially-designed software and technology into its Google Street View vehicles and used this technology to intercept Plaintiffs’ data packets, arguably electronic communications, from Plaintiffs’ personal Wi-Fi networks. Further, Plaintiffs plead that the data packets were transmitted over Wi-Fi networks that were configured such that the packets were not readable by the general public without the use of sophisticated packet sniffer technology.”
The judge rejected Google’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit based on the federal anti-wiretap law, although he did find in favor of Google’s argument that it did not violate state anti-wiretap laws.
A Google spokeswoman said in statement sent to paidContent.org: “We believe these claims are without merit and that the Court should have dismissed the wiretap claim just as it dismissed the plaintiffs’ other claims. We’re still evaluating our options at this preliminary stage.”