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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Google's Street View faces multi-state US probe

Connecticut will lead a multi-state investigation into Google's collection of wi-fi data. Google has admitted that its Street View cars "accidentally" collected data from unsecured wi-fi networks in 30 countries because of some rogue code in the software used by the service.

The US investigation will attempt to answer how that code ended up being used by Street View. It will ask the search giant who inserted the code and why, whether the data was extracted and why Google saved it.

Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has asked for copies of the company's internal procedures regarding Street View and for exact details of how and when Google learned that its cars were capturing sensitive data. Consumers have a right and a need to know what personal information - which could include e-mails, web browsing and passwords - Google may have collected and why. Google must come clean," he said.

Investigations are also on-going in Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

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