Anyone looking for assurance that the privacy of their home wireless networks would be protected from snoopers by government regulators won’t find it in the Federal Communication Commission’s recent action against Google.

The FCC fined Google $25,000 for impeding the agency’s investigation into reports that Google snooped on WiFi networks as its vehicles gathered information for its maps service.

Although the FCC didn’t peek at the info Google gathered from the private wireless nets, regulators in other nations conducting similar investigations have. They found Google had captured e-mail messages, instant messages, chat sessions, romantic exchanges between lovers, Web addresses that could be used to determine a person’s sexual orientation and data that could be linked to specific addresses.

Google ‘Good Faith’ Effort

When Google’s activity was uncovered in 2010, the company was profusely apologetic in public. But when the time came to find out ‘the rest of the story’ about the data slurping affair, Google entered bunker mode, blocking the FCC’s efforts to obtain the information it felt it needed to complete its investigation.`

‘We worked in good faith to answer the FCC’s questions throughout the inquiry, and we’re pleased that they have concluded that we complied with the law’ was Google’s official line on […]