Google confessed last week--after being caught red-handed by German privacy officials--that since 2007 it has been unintentionally collecting private data from WiFi networks as its employees drove around in their Street View cars developing maps and other location-based products. Never mind that the company insisted just a few weeks ago that it was not collecting information sent over WiFi. Never mind that regulators around the world have expressed concern about the Street View project for years, even without suspecting the accidental data snatching.

To Google, it was all just a simple coding mistake: "[I]t's now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) WiFi networks, even though we never used that data in any Google products," Alan Eustace, Google's senior vice president for Engineering & Research, wrote in a blog post May 14. "This incident highlights just how publicly accessible open, non-password-protected WiFi networks are today."

Google's big mess in Germany offers two lessons for companies with regard to private data: First, make sure employees don't send company information over non-password protected WiFi networks, anywhere. Second, European privacy authorities seem to be serious about enforcing privacy protections.  

The New York Times on Sunday quoted several German officials who sound fed up with Google. The German consumer protection minister, Ilse Aigner, said that "it appears that Google has illegally tapped into private networks in violation of German law. This is alarming and further evidence that privacy law is a foreign concept to Google."  Meanwhile, a bill was recently introduced in the German Parliament to fine Google $62,500 every time it does not exempt personal data from Street View when requested.

Google hasn't done U.S. companies a favor by pushing the envelope on data privacy in Europe. Europe already was skeptical about the U.S. commitment to privacy, and this incident will only exacerbate the concerns. It may have been a simple mistake that Google made, but for companies doing business in Europe, that kind of mistake may become more costly. - Caron