Google to pay $7 million fine for privacy violation

Google on Tuesday agreed to pay some States the sum of $7 million to settle complaints that its Stree View cars violated people's privacy.
The settlement with 37 States comes nearly three years after the company admitted collecting information ike passwords and e-mails from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks when its cars were passing by. The internet giant said it will take steps to ensure that the company does not tap into networks again in the future. As part of the agreement, Google also agreed to destroy the personal data it collected.
The said settlement was quicly criticized by privacy advocates as an insufficient slap on the wrist.
"With Googles revenue of $100 million dollars a day, the fine is just like a drop of water in the ocean and it is not enough to deter bad behaviour"
Since 2007, Google has sent aroun cars with cameras attached to their roof to film 360 degrees images of a Google map component called 'Street View'. When the programme was investigated by European regulators, Google said it discovered that it mistakenly downloaded snippets of the so called 'Payload data' from internet users who were logged onto unprotected wireless networks that were in range of its cars.
Culled from CNN