For years, Google has used its squadron of Street View cars to capture both imagery and 3D geometry for Google Maps and data about Wi-F i networks that it uses in its geolocation-enabled apps. It's been a controversial practice. And on April 27, the company published a blog post to clear up misconceptions about its practices. The tone was very slightly edgy, and the gist was (A) we're not invading anybody's privacy; and (B) other people have been doing this stuff even long than we have. 
 
 Except...now Google is saying that its statement that it was only collecting SSID and MAC information from the networks it drove by is incorrect. At the request of the German government, Google examined its system more carefully. And it discovered that for the past three years, Street View cars have been accidentally using a piece of software that can pick up data being transmitted over non-password-protected networks. Since the cars were in constant motion and their network-monitoring equipment changed channels five times a second, the company says it's "typically" only picked up "fragments" of data. 
 
 Nevertheless, it's temporarily grounded the cars, has isolated the data in question while it figures out what to do with it, and says it'll hire a third party to examine the software. And it's "profoundly sorry for this error" and will try to learn from it. 
 
 None of this is cause for panic -- if anything, Google is guilty of sustained incompetence, not malevolence. Yes, there are scenarios in which the data is used in appalling ways. But the chances of problems arising for any of the individuals whose data was accidentally sniffed are vastly lower than those of the same individuals having their identities stolen by intentional data thieves. 
 
 A few other thoughts: 
 
 * I'm glad the German government browbeat Google over this. 
 
 * Before it discovered it had screwed up, Google insisted it was doing nothing wrong. No company ever admits to invading anyone's privacy. It's always "your privacy is important to us" blah blah blah -- and the proper response is always skepticism. 
 
 * PASSWORD PROTECT YOUR WI-FI NETWORK. NOW. ||||| Google’s roaming Street View cameras have been doing more than snap pics of your neighborhood; they’ve also been collecting packets of information sent over private WiFi networks, the company acknowledged Friday. 
 
 The company said the collection was “a mistake,” the result of a programming error, and that it has now stopped collecting the data, according to a post on its blog. 
 
 But the revelation raises questions about whether the company violated federal wiretapping laws in collecting the information and could draw scrutiny from U.S. regulators. 
 
 Last month, regulators with the Data Protection Authority in Germany asked the search giant what information its Street View cameras collected and what it did with that information. 
 
 Google disclosed at the time that in addition to taking pictures, its camera system collected certain data about local WiFi networks set up in neighborhoods where the cameras traveled. That data included the SSID (the network’s name) and the MAC address (a unique number given to each WiFi router) and was collected to improve the location-based services it offers consumers. 
 
 The company asserted, however, that it did not collect or store “payload data” — that is, web surfing data or the content of e-mails, transmitted over WiFi networks. 
 
 The DPA asked to examine the WiFi network data Google collected. The request prompted Google to take a closer look at the data itself, whereby the company discovered that it was indeed collecting snippets of information passing over WiFi networks and therefore its previous statement was incorrect. 
 
 The company wrote in an update on Friday that “it’s now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) WiFi networks, even though we never used that data in any Google products.” 
 
 The company insisted that the collection was minimal and that its cameras were able to collect “only fragments of payload data,” because the Street View cars are constantly on the move, and someone would need to be using the WiFI network as a Google car passed in order for the data to be collected. The car system also cycles through channels about five times a second, limiting the data it could collect from a single network at any one time. 
 
 The problem was attributed to an oversight error. In 2006 “an engineer working on an experimental WiFi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast WiFi data,” the company wrote. “A year later, when our mobile team started a project to collect basic WiFi network data like SSID information and MAC addresses using Google’s Street View cars, they included that code in their software—although the project leaders did not want, and had no intention of using, payload data.” 
 
 Google said that once it discovered the issue, it grounded its Street View cars. It intends to delete the data that’s already been collected and is working with regulators to determine how to dispose of it. In the interest of transparency, the company will also have a third party review its software to verify what data was collected and confirm that it’s been deleted. 
 
 The company says it has stopped collecting WiFi data network entirely and will review its internal controls to ensure that a similar programming error doesn’t occur again. 
 
 Photo: Byrion/Flickr ||||| Through a spokesman, Facebook rejected the regulator’s claim, saying the tagging feature, which gives the person in the photograph the final right to accept, reject or remove a tag, conforms with the European privacy law. 
 
 “We will consider the points the Hamburg Data Protection Authority have made about the photo tag suggest feature but firmly reject any claim that we are not meeting our obligations under European Union data protection law,” said a Facebook spokesman in Berlin. 
 
 The dispute is the latest between leading American technology companies and European privacy regulators, especially in Germany, over the privacy ramifications raised by social networking, online mapping and location services tied to mobile advertising. 
 
 Last year, Google apologized to privacy officials around the world, and paid some fines, after it was revealed that Google’s roving Street View mapping vehicles were also collecting private data from unencrypted Wi-Fi routers. 
 
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 Google attributed the systematic, unauthorized collection of individual data to a programmer’s error. 
 
 Apple, the maker of the iPhone, came under scrutiny in April in Germany after a computer expert revealed that the iPhone was compiling logs of user locations. The inquiry, which was led by privacy officials in Bavaria, was closed in June after Apple agreed to redesign the feature to address German privacy concerns, said Thomas Kranig, the head of the Bavarian data protection agency. 
 
 Mr. Kranig, in an interview, said Apple had attributed the unauthorized data collection to a programmer’s error and had redesigned iPhone software to give Germans the option to allow collection of location data. 
 
 In July 2010, Mr. Caspar started an investigation into Facebook over its Friends Finder feature, which allows Facebook to copy names and details from a user’s e-mail address book to find friends who are also on Facebook. Mr. Caspar said Facebook, besides finding friends, was also identifying non-Facebook users culled from the lists with solicitations to join its network. 
 
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 That inquiry was closed, Mr. Caspar said, after Facebook agreed to change the Friends Finder application to let anyone contacted through the function decide in advance whether their data could be used by Facebook. 
 
 Despite its run-ins with privacy officials, Facebook has grown in Germany, where it has more than 20 million users who log in at least once a month. 
 
 Mr. Caspar said Tuesday that Facebook had built an archive of more than 75 billion photos, and 450 million people have been tagged worldwide. 
 
 The Facebook representative in Berlin said Facebook did not permanently store data on individual faces, but could not say how long Facebook kept the data.
– Google has pronounced itself "profoundly sorry" for the revelation that its roving street-map vehicles have been inadvertently collecting data about websites people visit over unprotected WiFi networks. The company says it's ditching the data and fixing the problem. (See its explanation and apology here.) Some early reaction: "It’s not likely that Google grabbed enough data about many individuals for this to be a major privacy concern," writes Jason Kincaid at TechCrunch. But as it faces increased scrutiny from privacy advocates and governments, "this is certain to haunt Google nonetheless." At Wired, Kim Zetter says it could go beyond bad PR: "The revelation raises questions about whether the company violated federal wiretapping laws in collecting the information and could draw scrutiny from US regulators." Harry McCracken, PC World: "None of this is cause for panic—if anything, Google is guilty of sustained incompetence, not malevolence."