Watch out Google’s about!

Today’s Mail on Sunday shows how Google has admitted it cynically ‘swiped’ details of thousands – or millions – of our wireless network connections so it could target ads to us.

According to the paper the technology giant doubled up while shooting images for its controversial Street View project.

The Mail reveals: “As Google’s distinctive fleet of cars, fitted with roof-mounted cameras, cruised Britain’s streets over the past three years photographing every house and public building, antennae inside were also pinpointing the wi-fi hotspots.”

Ironically there had been media reports alleging  that Google had admitted ‘accidentally’ collecting some emails from ‘open’ wireless networks. But as The Mail on Sunday reports Google was on a deliberate and calculated mission to gather information so it could target localised ads.

The company has admitted that it should have been ‘more transparent’ about the full extent of the project and pledged to stop mapping any new personal wireless networks in future.  But it said it would NOT delete the information it had already obtained from the Street View project which now covers almost every road in the UK.

For many this is incontrovertible evidence that Big Brother is alive and well.

Should google be congratulated on innovation or publicly derided for an invasion of privacy?  Answers on a postcard…