Judge Agrees That Perhaps It Would Be Best For Someone Else To Review His Claim That WiFi Isn't A Radio Communication

from the good-news dept

We were pretty surprised a few weeks back when a judge claimed that Google could be subject to wiretapping charges for collecting snippets of data during the Street View data collection might be illegal wiretapping, because he didn't consider open WiFi to be radio communications. Under the law, open and unencrypted radio communications are not subject to wiretapping rules, because, well, they're open. Claiming that open WiFi isn't a radio communication made most techies' jaws drop... and Google quickly suggested that the judge let them get a second opinion on that point, before going through with a full trial.

Thankfully, the judge has agreed, recognizing that perhaps he didn't answer that initial question correctly.

Thus, in light of the novelty of the issues presented, the court finds that its June 29 order involves a controlling question of law as to which there is a credible basis for a difference of opinion, and also finds that certification of the June 29 order for appeal would materially advance the litigation

In other words... let's make sure I got that part right before we do anything else. That's good. I'm happy to see that Judge James Ware at least recognizes that people may disagree with his contention that WiFi is not a radio communication and will allow that point to be explored further.

Filed Under: data collection, radio communication, street view, wifi, wiretapping
Companies: google