Google to Pay $7 Million in Wi-Fi Privacy Case: Is it too Little?

Google has agreed to pay just $7 million to US states for its Street View snooping, uncovered three years ago, which is just over what the company made an hour last year.

The furor erupted in 2010 when Google disclosed that it had collected Wi-Fi data from unsecured wireless networks as its "Street View" vehicles crawled major cities worldwide, photographing buildings for a ground-level view on Google Maps. On Tuesday, Google agreed to pay $7 million to 38 states and the District of Columbia to settle the matter. $7 million might sound like a lot but considering that Google posted a revenue of $50 billion last year, that works out to about $6 million a mere hour.

Google "Street View" cars went around major cities and accidentally collected data from unsecured wireless networks, the company admitted. This included personal data, including browser activity, email traffic, and even medical and financial records, from the WiFi networks of unsuspecting users. 

"It's clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords," Google Vice President of Engineering and Research Alan Eustace said in a post on Google's blog post when the news broke out in 2010.

Following the agreement, Google has also been told to tighten privacy issues regulations among employees and the company will have to explicitly tell the public how to fend off privacy violations like this one.

"While the $7 million is significant, the importance of this agreement goes beyond financial terms," Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, who led the multi-state probe, said in a statement. "Consumers have a reasonable expectation of privacy. This agreement recognizes those rights and ensures that Google will not use similar tactics in the future to collect personal information without permission from unsuspecting consumers."

Although $7 million is a small amount to pay, privacy watchdogs say the overall agreement was a breakthrough for a company they say has become a serial violator of privacy.

"Google puts innovation ahead of everything and resists asking permission," said Scott Cleland, a consultant for Google's competitors and a consumer watchdog whose blog maintains a close watch on Google's privacy issues. "But the states are throwing down a marker that they are watching and there is a line the company shouldn't cross."