Service took more of Internet users’ data than believed before
On Friday, Google wrote in a blog post that it was “mortified” upon learning out how much Internet users’ data its Street View service had taken. The company said the cars retrieved private data including e-mail addresses, URLs, and passwords from residential Wi-Fi networks. “We want to delete this data as soon as possible, and I would like to apologize again for the fact that we collected it in the first place,” wrote Alan Eustace, a senior vice president of engineering and research, in the blog post. Analysts say the admission will probably incur more fines and potential lawsuits for Google. Already, regulators in Canada, U.S. and many countries in Europe are undergoing investigations about privacy violations.