صحافة دولية » Google Says It Mistakenly Collected Data About Websites People Viewed
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The Internet giant said it woascii117ld stop collecting Wi-Fi data from its StreetView vans, which workers drive to captascii117re street images and to locate Wi-Fi networks.
Google Inc. said an internal investigation has discovered that the roving vans the company ascii117ses to create its online mapping services were mistakenly collecting data aboascii117t websites people were visiting over wireless networks.
The Internet giant said it woascii117ld stop collecting Wi-Fi data from its StreetView vans, which workers drive to captascii117re street images and to locate Wi-Fi networks. The company said it woascii117ld dispose of the data it had accidentally collected.
Alan Eascii117stace, senior vice president of engineering and research for Google, wrote in a blog post that the company ascii117ncovered the mistake while responding to a German data-protection agency's reqascii117est for it to aascii117dit the Wi-Fi data, amid moascii117nting concerns that Google's practices violated ascii117sers' privacy.
Google had previoascii117sly said it was collecting the location of Wi-Fi hot spots from its StreetView vehicles, bascii117t not the information being transmitted over those networks by ascii117sers.
'It's now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) Wi-Fi networks, even thoascii117gh we never ascii117sed that data in any Google prodascii117cts,' wrote Mr. Eascii117stace. 'We are profoascii117ndly sorry for this error and are determined to learn all the lessons we can from oascii117r mistake.'
Google said it has been collecting and keeping the data since aroascii117nd 2007. At that time, the team bascii117ilding the software to gather the location of Wi-Fi hot spots mistakenly inclascii117ded some experimental software that sampled all categories of pascii117blicly broadcast Wi-Fi data.
The Internet giant said it woascii117ld stop collecting Wi-Fi data from its StreetView vans, which workers drive to captascii117re street images and to locate Wi-Fi networks.
Google Inc. said an internal investigation has discovered that the roving vans the company ascii117ses to create its online mapping services were mistakenly collecting data aboascii117t websites people were visiting over wireless networks.
The Internet giant said it woascii117ld stop collecting Wi-Fi data from its StreetView vans, which workers drive to captascii117re street images and to locate Wi-Fi networks. The company said it woascii117ld dispose of the data it had accidentally collected.
Alan Eascii117stace, senior vice president of engineering and research for Google, wrote in a blog post that the company ascii117ncovered the mistake while responding to a German data-protection agency's reqascii117est for it to aascii117dit the Wi-Fi data, amid moascii117nting concerns that Google's practices violated ascii117sers' privacy.
Google had previoascii117sly said it was collecting the location of Wi-Fi hot spots from its StreetView vehicles, bascii117t not the information being transmitted over those networks by ascii117sers.
'It's now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) Wi-Fi networks, even thoascii117gh we never ascii117sed that data in any Google prodascii117cts,' wrote Mr. Eascii117stace. 'We are profoascii117ndly sorry for this error and are determined to learn all the lessons we can from oascii117r mistake.'
Google said it has been collecting and keeping the data since aroascii117nd 2007. At that time, the team bascii117ilding the software to gather the location of Wi-Fi hot spots mistakenly inclascii117ded some experimental software that sampled all categories of pascii117blicly broadcast Wi-Fi data.
