Google hit with several class-action lawsuits over WiFi snooping

In June 2010, Google admitted that the cars it uses to gather Street View pictures have collected private information from unencrypted wireless networks for years, including passwords and extracts of the content of email messages. Google asserts that the collection was inadvertent.  Pablo Chavez, Google's director of public policy, explained in a June 9 letter to Congress that the Street View vehicles gather network information such as wireless addresses broadcast by WiFi routers "to improve the accuracy of the location-based services, such as Google Maps or driving directions."

Van Valin was the first, but not the last to file a class action complaint accusing Google of privacy invasion. Lots and lots of lawyers are trying to jump into the game. At least 7 class action lawsuits have been filed:

• Berlage v. Google (N.D. Cal. filed May 20)
• Carter v. Google (E.D. Pa. filed June 2)
• Colman v. Google (D.C. D.C. filed May 26)
• Galaxy Internet v. Google (D. Mass. filed May 25)
• Keyes v. Google (D.C. D.C. filed May 28)
• Redstone v. Google (S.D. Ill. filed May 28, 2010)
• Van Valin v. Google (D. Ore. filed May 17).

The big question in all these lawsuits: How can the plaintiff show that any of its specific data was recorded by Google, and that any harm came to him because of it.

Google filed a motion June 9 to consolidate all U.S. suits and move them to federal court in San Francisco.