Google Inc. acknowledged collecting data from unsecured wireless Internet hot spots in Connecticut beginning in 2008, according to state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal who had queried the company on its activities.
According to Blumenthal, Google admitted that vehicles it uses to take “street view” images for its online mapping functions also collected data from wireless “WiFi” zones through which the vehicles passed.
Google called the unauthorized information gathering a software mistake, and said the data has been secured and was not used in any Google service or product. The company added that it recently grounded its entire street-view fleet and ceased all WiFi data collection to address concerns about the practice.
The company also acknowledged collecting technical information about personal and business WiFi networks themselves, saying it considered that data to be public information. The data includes information on radio signals broadcast by wireless networks, and the unique address of computers and other devices they serve. Google said it needs the data to improve its location-based services.
“Google”™s acknowledgement that it vacuumed up data from unencrypted wireless computer networks in Connecticut is disturbing and demands additional inquiry,” Blumenthal said in a prepared statement. “Google grabbed information ”“ which could include emails, passwords and web-browsing ”“ that consumers rightly expect to be private.
“Google needs to better explain how this practice happened,” Blumenthal added. “My office is carefully considering Google”™s answers and will seek additional information. Key questions include how Google learned that its software was gathering unencrypted data and why the company kept the information. We will consider the legality of Google”™s WiFi collection practices. Google”™s actions raise troubling and profound questions about privacy and whether laws need to be clarified or changed.”
Blumenthal urged residents and businesses to consider encrypting their wireless computer networks, and to change network passwords from those originally provided by manufacturers.
DIEBOLD SETTLES WITH SEC
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Diebold Inc. and three former executives with falsely inflating the Ohio-based company”™s earnings by $127 million between 2002 and 2007, prior to Hartford-based United Technologies Corp.”™s $2.6 billion acquisition offer in early 2008 that Diebold rejected.
Diebold agreed to pay a $25 million penalty to settle the SEC”™s charges, and Diebold”™s former CEO Walden O”™Dell agreed to reimburse cash bonuses, stock, and stock options under the “clawback” provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
The SEC had charged that the ATM maker”™s financial management received “flash reports,” sometimes on a daily basis, comparing the company”™s actual earnings to analyst earnings forecasts, from which they allegedly prepared “opportunity lists” of ways to close the gap. Many of the opportunities on these lists were fraudulent accounting transactions, the SEC said.
“Diebold”™s financial executives borrowed from many different chapters of the deceptive accounting playbook to fraudulently boost the company”™s bottom line,” said Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC”™s enforcement division, in a prepared statement.
