Judge: Google 'Street View' Case Dismissal Denied

"In 2006 an engineer working on an experimental WiFi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast WiFi data," Google's Senior VP, Engineering & Research Alan Eustace 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 is facing numerous lawsuits from this affair, but succeeded in getting the numerous US class-action suits combined into one case. The Mountain View-based company may have had hopes that a single case and a home-court advantage might shorten the exposure and lessen the potential damage, and attempted to make the argument that the data was 'readily accessible' -- that everything that it had done, any reasonably capable person could do from public property.

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However, Judge Ware determined that there was sufficient cause to entertain arguments that 'sniffing packets' could be construed as wiretapping -- and that Google was trying to 'have their cake and eat it too':

"While Plaintiffs plead that their networks, or electronic communications systems, were configured such that the general public may join the network and readily transmit electronic communications across that network to the Internet," Ware stated, "Plaintiffs [also] plead that the networks were themselves configured to render the data packets, or electronic communications, unreadable and inaccessible without the use of rare packet sniffing software; technology allegedly outside the purview of the general public."

James Lee Phillips is a Senior Writer & Research Analyst for IBG.com. With offices in Dallas, Las Vegas, and New York, & London, IBG is quickly becoming the leading expert in Internet Marketing, Local Search, SEO, Website Development and Reputation Management. More information can be found at www.ibg.com. Krittibas Ray explains asset management! Asset managers study the markets and the companies from which particular stocks and bonds are issued and decide which are best for their clients!