Topic: Google spy's

[Moley]

O.K. Somebody please explain this to me in english (or Welsh).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11797907

So, the cars were driving along taking photo's of streets to put in Google maps ?
and
They collected people's e-mails ?????
and
kept them ??????
and
other things????
like what ????
and most of all
WHY ??????

[JimmyTheHoover]

O.K. Somebody please explain this to me in english (or Welsh).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11797907

So, the cars were driving along taking photo's of streets to put in Google maps ?
and
They collected people's e-mails ?????
and
kept them ??????
and
other things????
like what ????
and most of all
WHY ??????

Put simply - they were nosier than the law allowed.... as to "why"... see thi :-

The rogue code, which collected thousands of e-mail addresses and other personal information from unsecured wireless networks, was developed in 2006 by a Google engineer taking advantage of the search giant's policy of allowing its engineers to use 20% of their time to work on projects of interest to them.

The Canadian investigation found that the engineer developed the code to sample all categories of publicly broadcast wi-fi.

The code was incorporated in the Google Street View cars when the firm decided to collect information about the location of public wi-fi spots in order to feed this information into its location-based services database.

When the decision to use the code was taken the engineer said it created "superficial privacy implications", but these were never assessed by other Google officials.

JIm

[Lloydie]

OK , someone help me through this.  I am usually pretty careful about allowing applications to access my personal info.  When I go on facebook now, I am "hit" with adverts that appear to be aimed at my recent browsing activity on google.  e.g. I booked a travelodge for the Windsor course and I have a prominent travelodge ad, I look at tile adhesive and suddenly lo-and-behold I find adverts for tile adhesive etc etc (still waiting for the lap dancers ad though   )  Which application is accessing my search history facebook or google?

[JimmyTheHoover]

I'd guess facebook Dave - what browser are you using ? - I use Firefox and don't see this behaviour

Jim

[Huw]

I use Firefox and Chrome and see the same as Dave - not just in Facebook but on many other sites as well. I recently browsed for something on the Wickes site (plywood) and for days afterwards seemed to be followed around the interweb by a bunch of Wickes adverts for, you guessed it, plywood. Time to ramp up the paranoia settings I guess

[Lloydie]

I'm using Google Chrome and the "Red" anti-paranoia pills at the mo