Google to Pay $7 mn for `Street View snooping` in US

Washington: Google has agreed to pay a group of states seven million dollars to settle complaints that it violated people`s privacy while using its Street View technology.

The settlement with 37 states comes nearly three years after the company admitted to collecting information like passwords and e-mails from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks its cars were passing by. Google said that it would take steps to make sure the company does not tap into networks again in the future. As part of the settlement, Google has also agreed to destroy the personal data it collected, the CNN reports. In 2012 the Federal Communications Commission fined Google 25,000 dollars for "willfully" stonewalling the agency`s probe into the matter. Since 2007, Google has sent around cars with cameras attached to their roofs to film 360-degree images for a Google Maps component called Street View. When the program was investigated by European regulators, Google said it discovered that it mistakenly downloaded snippets of so-called "payload data" from Internet users who were logged onto unprotected wireless networks that were in range of its cars. ANI