Google Collected Emails, Personal Information: South Korean Police

SEOUL, South Korea — Google Inc. collected e-mails and other personal information from unsecured wireless networks in South Korea while taking photographs for its Street View mapping service, police said Thursday. In May, the American search giant announced it had inadvertently collected fragments of people's online activities from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries, prompting investigations around the globe. Street View provides street-level images on Google Earth and Google Maps. Google said entire e-mails, URLs and passwords were among items its researchers collected. Google accessed private data as its cars took photos of neighborhoods in Seoul and three other major cities in South Korea between October 2009 and May 2010, said Jung Suk-hwa, a police officer in charge of the investigation. 

In addition to international investigations, about 40 U.S. states are seeking to review the information to see if Google improperly accessed e-mails, passwords and other private data.
Google's disclosure has generated a variety of responses. Greek officials asked for more safeguards before its streets were photographed, and some English villagers protested by forming a human chain to stop a camera van.

In November, Google bowed to pressure from German residents and made that country the only one in the world where people can ask in advance to have images of their homes excluded from the Street View feature. Last month, Google acknowledged that it trespassed when it took a photo of a Pittsburgh-area house for Street View, but consented to pay only $1 in damages to the couple who sued.