Google Street View secretly took your wi-fi details... and will use the data to target ads at mobile phones

There were earlier reports that Google had admitted accidentally collecting some emails from ‘open’ wireless networks. But The Mail on Sunday today reveals how – and why – the company has collected details of all wi-fis, even those protected by security.

Last night the firm, one of the world’s most powerful companies and worth £28billion, admitted that it should have been ‘more transparent’ about the full extent of the project and pledged to stop mapping any new personal wireless networks in future.

But it said it would not delete the information it had already obtained from the Street View project which now covers almost every road in Britain.

Personal wireless equipment – known as a router – allows people to access the internet from anywhere in their homes without plugging laptops and other devices into a telephone point.

However, the broadcast signal is not confined by the walls of a property and its footprint will often spill into neighbouring buildings and the street outside.

Internet providers encourage people to set up passwords to prevent anyone from using their web connection without their knowledge or potentially gaining access to personal information held on their computers.

But, even with a password in place, Google was able, without alerting anyone in advance or seeking any permission, to log the locations of all these wi-fi networks noting their names, called SSIDs, and the unique MAC, or Media Access Control, address of people’s personal equipment.

There are fears – dismissed as ‘conspiracy theories’ by Google officials – that personal information, together with the precise location of specific computer devices mapped by the firm, could be cross-referenced to track individuals’ internet use for commercial reasons.

The internet giant, which made profits of £4.5billion last year, says it is now using the data it gathered to offer location-based commercial services and advertising to mobile phone users and people with other portable devices, including Apple’s much-hyped iPad.

Software and phone ‘applications’ can pinpoint exactly where a mobile or computer device is by triangulating its position with the nearest wireless hot spots either at businesses or private addresses.


Google’s Mobile App, for example, allows users to link directly to restaurants and shops, find cinemas and theatres and hotels in their area and even to track the precise location of their friends and display information on their recent movements.


The search engine makes money by selling advertising attached to its internet maps and other content on its site, and also charges business when customers ‘click through’ to their websites to book a table or reserve a hotel room.


Using the wi-fi hotspot locations means Google can pinpoint users more precisely and more cheaply than using mobile phone masts or global positioning satellites.


According to its website, Google advertisers can ‘connect with the right customer at the right moment, wherever they are’.


It adds: ‘Is your customer just around the corner from you? Mobile users’ locations can be pinpointed with metre-level accuracy. Advertisers can easily target or tailor your message according to location and automatically show your customer relevant local store information, like phone numbers and addresses, to enable them to take immediate action.’


The concern about Google’s new system has also raised questions about other less well-known firms who have been quietly building up their own database.


One, Skyhook, says it has collected its information by ‘deploying drivers to survey every single street, highway, and alley in tens of thousands of cities and towns worldwide, scanning for wi-fi access points and cell towers plotting their precise geographic locations’.


There are also fears about possible future uses of the information, which could include users being targeted by unsolicited local advertising sent to them automatically as they walk or drive down a specific street.


For example, an automatic message paid for by a multinational coffee shop chain could be sent saying: ‘Feeling thirsty? You’re just 100 yards from our nearest coffee shop.’


Details of this secret side of the Street View project emerged this month after German regulators demanded details of the data Google was collecting on its citizens as it mapped the country for its version of Street View.

It was only then that the California-based multinational revealed that it was mapping people’s wi-fi networks and in some cases had inadvertently downloaded people’s personal information, including emails and web browsing history.


The German regulator, and also the Information Commissioner’s Office in Britain, have now ordered Google to delete this personal data.


And the firm is also facing a series of court cases in America over the issue, with one lawyer, Robert Carp, who is representing a Massachusetts internet firm, saying that the secret data collection was ‘nothing more than a further attempt to enhance their advertising capabilities’.

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via Google Street View secretly took your wi-fi details... and will use the data to target ads at mobile phones | Mail Online.