Last January, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) came under fire in the UK court when a group of over 100 people in Britain sued the company for misusing data pertaining to them. The plaintiffs, in this case users of Apple’s Safari browser, argued that Google had “inadvertently” come across unsecured user data and picked it up, stored it, while it was accessing unsecured Wi-Fi routers to properly map its Street View service during 2007-2010. This stored information was then used by Google for the benefit of its advertising service, according to the plaintiffs.
In what has become a curious case, Google has spent the last 12 months trying to avoid the case altogether. Google argues the case does not fall under any violations and the company’s actions are not significant enough to provoke a court case. According to the search engine giant, the information gathered by it was not a targeted operation, but a random sweep of the streets, where unsecure data existed. Google does not deny the fact that it did accumulate user data. However, Google has yet to specify a function that this information provides. If Google is using this information to improve its advertisements, then it could, by law, amount to a tort if it harms users in any way.
Google claims, it does not. But is that all to the story? This is not the first time Google has come under fire in court for misusing user data. Only last year, the company had to pay $7 million in settlement charges to over 38 states of the US for picking up user data on unsecured networks. When prosecuted, the company claimed the activity was absolutely harmless. However, the plaintiffs argued Google, as a profit-making company, would never do anything for no reason or purpose, and hence it was evident the company collected user data to further its own goals and objectives in the advertising world.
Google then argued that anyone could have come about this data, and that this data was public property, without an individual owner. However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this motion entirely and professed that the public did not have the mental capacity, nor the physical technology, to intercept so much of data from so many random locations on the internet, making Google’s case flawed as it no longer seemed normal for a company to do such a thing without ulterior motives.
But that’s not all. The UK side of the story is not the only one that goes against Google and its practices. In the beginning of this year, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) paid a fine worth $1.4 million to the government of Italy in a similar case filed against Google in the country. Whether Google misuses or does not misuse all its acquired data is best known by Google, which has not yet declared what it really does with all that user data. However, the UK court is not leaving Google’s case, and no matter how firmly appeals have been made by Google in this respect to UK courts, the latter has reaffirmed its position and restated that the case falls under its jurisdiction and will be tried in the UK.
