This is a guest posting from Marc Kosciejew. He follows privacy issues and is quite right in alerting us to Google’s unauthorized collection of personal data and its implications. Was Google being careless, unethical, arrogant? Evidence points to all of these.

It is disturbing and shocking how Google secretly collected personal information from its (intrusive) Street View mapping project; moreover, it’s particularly troubling that the online giant initially denied its clandestine activities.

“Google Concedes That Drive-By Prvying Violated Privacy”, The New York Times, 12 March 2013

Some highlights:

• Google acknowledged to state officials (from 38 American states) that it had violated people’s privacy during its Street View mapping project when it casually scooped up passwords, e-mail and other personal information from unsuspecting computer users.

• The Street View case arose out of Google’s deployment of special vehicles to photograph the houses and offices lining the world’s streets. But the company also secretly collected personal information — e-mail, medical and financial records, passwords — as it cruised by. It was data-scooping from millions of unencrypted wireless networks.

• A worldwide uproar and investigations in at least a dozen countries ensued. An Australian regulator, Stephen Conroy, called it “probably the single greatest breach in the history of privacy.”

• Google initially denied any data had been collected from unknowing individuals, then sought to play down what data had been collected and fought with regulators who wanted to examine it. Google said the data had been destroyed, although it turned out some had not been. Some data was purged, but Google is holding the rest until several private lawsuits are resolved.

• Privacy advocates and Google critics characterized the overall agreement as a breakthrough for a company they say has become a serial violator of privacy.

• Google, for the first time, is required to aggressively police its own employees on privacy issues and to explicitly tell the public how to fend off privacy violations like this one. But some critics worry that the case’s beneficial impact for privacy rights may be limited. Consumer Watchdog, a privacy monitor and frequent Google critic, said that “asking Google to educate consumers about privacy is like asking the fox to teach the chickens how to ensure the security of their coop.”