18 August 2010 | Author: O. Gaywood Media Optimiser

Google called to court in Spain over Street View

Spain has joined the list of countries upset by Google's Street View antics and has summoned a representative to court.

In May this year a senior vice president of Google revealed that their Street View cars had been "mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open Wi-Fi networks, even though we never used that data in any Google products" which trigged panic across the globe. The cars had been storing information about the locations of networks as well as names and MAC addresses of unsecured wireless networks. Google denies that it has used this data in any way.

It's due to this that that Apedanica - a Spanish watchdog looking to protect the rights of internet users - has filed the lawsuit, claiming Google has intercepted communications without permission.

A spokesman for Apedanica said: "Google's representative isn't being called as a witness, but rather as a defendant. The judge has asked the police for a report on the collection of data in Madrid because that's within his jurisdiction. Obviously it's not the only Spanish city where Street View has operated, but we've presented the complaint in Madrid, where Google has its headquarters."

This news follows the UK clearing Street View of any wrongdoing and, more recently, Korean officials raiding Google offices to seize information.

The Spanish trial date has been set for 4 October.

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