If .......

Google gets away with this, then we are at the top of a very slippery slope.

Let us hope that the facts will come out and Google will be held to account - really held to account with prison sentences, if appropriate.

Just Imagine

if Microsoft had done this! There would have been Hell on Earth!

You know what?

I still maintain, as I always have done, that any company whose corporate mantra is "Do no evil" does evil. Why? Because you would only adopt a mantra like that if you were contemplating the notion of doing evil in the first place.

No company has the mantra "don't wear frilly knickers" because wearing frilly knickers just doesn't enter their heads as a possible thing to do.

People have a tendency to deny that which they either do, or desire to do. Evangelical preachers you obsess about gays being the spawn of satan often turn out to be gay themselves.

Google is evil. Their subversive collection of private data is proof, in case you needed it.

Hmmm

It's an interesting one - I'm certainly very strongly against Google scooping up all that data but conversely, ppl have been wardriving for years - It's hardly secret information. On top of that, if you're broadcasting it from your house in an unprotected, unencrypted way - Well, wht do you expect?

So it's a breech of privacy

if you're stood shouting out what you're doing and Google went and recorded it as background noise while recording some other bit of information?

'cos that's the analogy I'd use in court.

People were sending out unencrypted information into a public place and Google collected it. If they'd been using their massive computing resources to crack encryption on more-secured networks they'd be very much in the wrong. If they'd injected packets into the network they'd be in the wrong.

But passively listening and recording what people are essentially shouting out? I'd rather they didn't, but I can't see how you could reasonably implement a law for that. Even mining that information seems fair enough- it was freely given and if Google want to waste time mining it then fair play to them.

I like my privacy. Curtains and gates to the driveway shut at night, nice tall hedge around the garden, encrypted WiFi- and even then it's only used when it's needed; most computers and network enabled devices in the house are connected to the wired network.

Given the majority of the responses so far, though, I feel I should point out that I make a point of not shouting out my pin number when I'm at the ATM and hoping that no-one listens.