Federal Trade Commission Closes Noninvestigation of Google Street View
The Federal Trade Commission has sent a letter to Google, ending an investigation that never began. In May, the Federal Trade Commission was asked by members of Congress to investigate Google's secretive collection of wifi data as part of Street View, a mapping program characterized by the collection of digital imagery. In a letter to Federal Communications Commission, EPIC further explained that Google's conduct likely violated federal wiretap law. Subsequent investigations in other countries revealed that Google secretly collected passwords, email, and sensitive medical data from millions of Internet users, and also built an extensive database of personal information associated with private residential wifi routers. However, the Federal Trade Commission never pursued an independent investigation of Street View, examined the data collected by Google in the United States, or even acknowledged the findings of other agencies. Investigations are still pending in several countries and 37 states in the U.S. For more information, see EPIC: Google Street View.
October 27, 2010| Share:
