From Computer World

Lawyers in class-action suit link patent application to Street View data sniffing
Google's secret Wi-Fi snooping was powered by new sniffing technology that the company wants to patent, court documents filed Wednesday alleged.

A just-amended complaint in a class-action lawsuit first submitted two weeks ago claims that a patent Google submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in November 2008 shows that the search giant purposefully created technology to gather, analyze and use data sent by users over their wireless networks.

The lawsuit, which was filed by an Oregon woman and a Washington man in a Portland, Ore. federal court May 17, accused Google of violating federal privacy and data acquisition laws when its Street View vehicles snatched data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks as they drove up and down U.S. streets.

Google acknowledged the privacy issue May 14, but said it had not known it was collecting data from unprotected wireless networks until recently.
Privacy Watch

The company faces multiple civil lawsuits in the U.S., and is under investigation by authorities in several countries, including Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany Spain and Italy. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has said it will take a "very, very close look" at the Google practice.

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