Google Reaches Agreement With Connecticut Over Street View Data

Google has reached an agreement with Connecticut over the “payload data” the company accidentally collected from consumers and businesses in the state during 2008 and 2009.

The data was collected using Street View cars equipped with cameras an a Wi-Fi antenna. The antenna inadvertently collected data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks.

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen and Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell said Friday they have reached an agreement with Google, Inc. over the company’s objection to a demand that it produce the data.

The stipulation will allow Google and the state of Connecticut, and the 40-state coalition it is leading, to begin negotiations to resolve the data collection issue without going to court to enforce a subpoena issued in December on behalf of the state.

Google has said it is "profoundly sorry" for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted wireless networks.

"As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities," a company spokesman said. "We did not want and have never used the payload data in any of our products and services.”

The company has said that it wanted to delete the data but was barred from doing so by the subpoena issued by Jepson's predecessor, Richard Blumenthal. Google had been fighting the subpoena but the agreement reached Friday resolved the issue.

“This is a good result for the people of Connecticut. The stipulation means we can proceed to negotiate a settlement of the critical privacy issues implicated here without the need for a protracted and costly fight in the courts, although we are ready to do so if we are unable to come to a satisfactory agreement through negotiation,” Jepsen said.

The subpoena was issued after Google refused to provide access to information requested to confirm that Google had gathered private information and to determine the frequency of any violations of law. Google has now stipulated that while collecting network identification information for use in offering “location aware” services, it did in fact collect and store the payload data that contained private information.

In particular, Google stipulates, for purposes of settlement discussions, that the payload data collected contained URLs of requested Web pages, partial or complete e-mail communications or other information, including confidential and private information the network user was transmitting over the unsecured network while Google’s Street View car was within range.

Google also will not contest during settlement negotiations that such private information was collected every day that the Street View cars operated.

Negotiations with Google are continuing.