More And More Lawsuits Filed Against Google Over Street View WiFi Slurping

from the evidence? dept

Wed, Jun 9th 2010 8:10pm — Mike Masnick

We've already covered one class action lawsuit filed against Google for its WiFi data slurping activities, and it appears that lots and lots of lawyers are trying to jump into the game. Eric Goldman has a list of at least seven such class action lawsuits that have been filed already. While we agree that Google's actions were bad, and do deserve some scrutiny, I find it difficult to believe these lawsuits can get anywhere. In the first one that we covered, we noted that one of the complaints was from a woman who sent confidential company data via her own, unsecured WiFi access point, and we couldn't figure out how that was Google's fault.

The real issue, though, is that it will be nearly impossible (if not impossible) for anyone in any of these lawsuits to first show that any of their specific data was recorded by Google, and secondly, that any harm came to them because of it. And, as we've noted multiple times, the courts seem to want to (a) see actual privacy being breached, rather than theoretical privacy being breached and (b) see actually harm come to the plaintiffs from those breaches. Without either of those things, it's hard to see these lawsuits getting very far.

As Goldman notes, not at all sarcastically:

It's remarkable that these lawyers were able to conclude to their satisfaction that their named plaintiffs in fact had their payload data captured in the process--presumably by confirming that payload data was actually being transmitted at the precise time the cars drove by. I'm not sure how I would research this issue sufficient to satisfy my Rule 11 obligation, but these attorneys surely didn't just assume Google captured their clients' payload data...did they?

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Filed Under: class action, harm, lawsuits, wifi
Companies: google

20 Comments

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Hoeppner, 9 Jun 2010 @ 8:42pm

Litigate first, you might be able to get the facts "eventually".
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Jonathan Lang, 9 Jun 2010 @ 8:45pm

Settlement fishing.
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Radjin, 9 Jun 2010 @ 9:54pm

Just Google trying to tie you to more ads. After all it's an ad company, not a content company. Ads are no good unless you can tie them to people. So if you look for porn, Goggle will sell that data to the porn industry and they will come looking for you.
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pat, 9 Jun 2010 @ 10:42pm

cookies
If you were too look into a web sight the first thing that happens is your ip address is sent or liks that advertise that kind of thing send a cookie so that the next time your computer comes back on line its calling for the adds that you might already have the address for in that cookie. This also accounts for virus and unwanted emails.
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GimmeDaPhone, 10 Jun 2010 @ 2:25am

To use youtube or any service by Google you need to hand over your cellphone number now.

How many naive people will do that?
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Andrew, 10 Jun 2010 @ 3:37am

WHA?
From reading their comments, I can't help but assume that Radjin and pat have zero idea of what their talking about or how the internet works.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jun 2010 @ 4:34am

Re: cookies
Cookies are a great example of how website operators create market inefficiency by withholding information from consumers.

Why fully disclose what data you collect and what happens to it if it will affect whether people return to your site? If you disclose it, some people might not return. Best to keep that information secret from consumers so it wont affect their decisions.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jun 2010 @ 4:51am

Lawyers take from all and produce nothing, they have no place in a civilized society.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jun 2010 @ 4:53am

Re:
Please point to any society on Earth that is civilized. Just name one.
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Daddy Warbucks, 10 Jun 2010 @ 4:54am

Too many...
That's a problem with this country, too many lawyers and not enough engineers.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jun 2010 @ 4:58am

Re: WHA?
Second that
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abc gum, 10 Jun 2010 @ 5:07am

Snipe Hunt
How do these plaintiffs demonstrate standing in their cases?
Even if they could show they leased a particular IP addr and it is within the collected data at the time of their lease, where is the injury and causation?
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Michael, 10 Jun 2010 @ 6:36am

Re: WHA?
looks that way to me too.
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AggieTallBoy, 10 Jun 2010 @ 8:55am

Disagree that it's bad...
The uproar that's being generated over this is bordering on the ridiculous.

Anyone operating a wifi device is doing so by virtue of an unlicensed radio transmitter (unlicensed, because the frequency range has been designated as open, and not requiring a license.)

Protesting over someone driving by and collecting the data made available by your radio station is akin to protesting Verizon's "Can you hear me now" campaign to see where there's cellular coverage.

You choose to operate this base station, with what I'd hope is the full knowledge that radio waves are free to travel, and anyone may receive them at any time, and you have no reasonable expectation to believe that they won't be. It's your responsibility to either shut off your wifi, encrypt the traffic, and accept that your transmissions WILL be received by people you don't want to.

So they're collecting them into a database... whoop-de-doo... why on earth does anyone really care?

Go for it Google!
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TtfnJohn (profile), 10 Jun 2010 @ 11:08am

Re:
"To use youtube or any service by Google you need to hand over your cellphone number now."

Since when?
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TtfnJohn (profile), 10 Jun 2010 @ 11:10am

Re: Too many...
There's also too many engineers and not enough craftspeople.

Like lawyers, engineers don't build diddly though they do draw up highly flawed plans to build things. Come to think of they're like lawyers that way! ;-)
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PrometheeFeu (profile), 10 Jun 2010 @ 3:09pm

Yeah, honestly, if you broadcast information in plain-text over radio waves, you have no expectation of privacy.
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abc gum, 10 Jun 2010 @ 6:39pm

Re: Re: Too many...
"Like lawyers, engineers don't build diddly though they do draw up highly flawed plans to build things."

Yeah, and I'm sure that your opinion is based upon your many years of experience across the entire spectrum of enginerring discipline.

Not.
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blackhair, 11 Jun 2010 @ 3:13am

Sue Me!
I have Netstumbler installed on my laptop and turn it on whenever I go out just because I can!

And yes "nobodyseesme" you forgot to turn your SSID Broadcast off.
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