Topic: GOOGLE - on June 4, 2010 at 12:33:00 PM CEST
Google is 'close' to handing over German wi-fi data
Pressure is mounting over Google's wi-fi data capture
Search giant Google has said it is "close" to resolving issues that have prevented it from passing a hard disk of data to German authorities.
The disk contains wi-fi data Google Street View cars gathered by mistake.
Google is attempting to patent the very same wardriving technology the search giant says it used by mistake to snoop on Wi-Fi users in more than 30 countries, attorneys said Wednesday.
A patent application published in January describes a method devised by Google for gathering and analyzing data sent via wireless access points. The application says the device "may be placed in a vehicle and data may be obtained continuously or at predetermined time increments" and that the speed of the vehicle "may be factored into the analysis," according to lawyers suing Google on behalf of people whose traffic may have been collected by the technology.
Google looks set to gain a surprising ally in its battle against the European Commission to retain its search logs - the European Parliament.
The dominant search firm has been under pressure from Brussels to erase personally identifiable information from its logs after six months. So far Google has agreed to some anonymisation after nine months.
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