Google has moved closer to being subjected to a thorough investigation of its business practices by both American and EU authorities.
The search giant’s admission that it recorded private communications sent over unsecured wireless networks brought an immediate call from the German data protection commissioner, Peter Schaar, for a detailed investigation.
He alleged in The Financial Times that “one of the largest companies in the world, the market leader on the internet, simply disobeyed normal rules in the development and usage of software.”
In the US, the Federal Trade Commission was believed to be close to announcing its own inquiry into the matter, according to people who spoke to agency officials.
An inquiry could look at whether the collection of data breached rules on unauthorised access to computers and private communications, according to privacy campaigners.
“This may be one of the most massive surveillance incidents by a private corporation that has ever occurred”, said Marc Rotenberg, leader of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre in Washington.
A few days before this revelation, Google had reversed earlier assertions denying that it had monitored and collected data on individuals’ activity.
It said the data was inadvertently culled as a fleet of camera-equipped Street View vehicles, which take pictures for the group’s imaging services, assembled a database of electronic WiFi addresses intended to enhance its maps and other location services.
Google said the project leaders ignored that the vehicles were also taking in snippets of activity on the WiFi networks.
“We didn’t want to collect this data in the first place and we would like to destroy it as soon as possible,” said Google’s spokesman Peter Barron.
The data in question had never been available to outsiders, the company said.
Ilse Aigner, the German minister for consumer protection, said the new revelation “is alarming and yet another proof that privacy protection is still alien to Google.”
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office said that Google appeared to have breached the data protection act.
But it added that after receiving assurances from Google that it would delete the data “as soon as reasonably possible”, the commissioner would not be taking further action against the company.
The Google controversy follows a recent uproar over Facebook’s erosion of privacy settings.
“Both Google and Facebook have given the privacy groups an unsolicited contribution,” said Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy.