SEOUL, South Korea — The South Korean police raided the offices of Google Korea on Tuesday as part of an investigation into whether the company had illegally collected and stored personal wireless data. The search company is already facing lawsuits and investigations in several countries in connection with private wireless data collected for its Street View service. Street View, which was started in 2006, allows users to view panoramic street scenes on Google Maps and take virtual walks through cities.
From late last year until May, Google Korea dispatched cars topped with cameras to cruise around the country to photograph neighborhoods before the planned introduction of Street View. The police suspect that those cars might have illegally captured and stored personal data from wireless networks while they were mapping streets, a statement by the Cyber Terror Response Center of the Korean National Police Agency said.
“We will investigate Google Korea officials and scrutinize the data we confiscated today” to see whether the company violated the country’s laws on communications and privacy, it said.
“We intend to find out what kinds of data they have collected and how much,” the response center said. “We will try to retrieve all the original data illegally collected and stored through domestic Wi-Fi networks from the Google headquarters.”
Google confirmed in an e-mailed statement to Reuters that the South Korean police visited the company’s office in conjunction with their investigation concerning data collection by Street View cars. The company said it would cooperate with the investigation. Google said previously that the collection of personal data in other countries had been unintentional and that the company would cooperate with investigations. The company has faced tough competition in South Korea. One domestic search engine, Daum, already runs a popular service akin to Street View.
Google said Tuesday that it would introduce Street View in Germany before the end of the year, The Associated Press reported from Berlin.
The feature, Google said, would be available in the 20 largest German cities. According to the company, residents could ask to have photographs of their houses removed from the database starting next week — a move aimed at dispelling privacy fears.
Source by nytimes.com
Posted by Danish on August 11, 2010 at 8:46 am
Lol Now South Korea after China. Get Well soon Google.
Posted by MerrySparrow on August 11, 2010 at 8:54 am
I’ve never imagined someone may not “like” a search system.
Posted by claire on August 11, 2010 at 9:11 am
well thats what the South Korean police love to do
Posted by aghaali on August 11, 2010 at 7:39 pm
hahha what he find?
Posted by david kimball on August 11, 2010 at 7:41 pm
lolll
Posted by vladimirb on August 11, 2010 at 7:41 pm
asian countries don’t like Google I guess he he
Posted by Adas on August 11, 2010 at 7:43 pm
very useful blog
Posted by Dan Patrick on August 11, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Unbelievable. Bunch of hype.
Posted by Heesa Phadie on August 11, 2010 at 7:50 pm
I can’t believe they did that!
Posted by MOin on August 11, 2010 at 8:11 pm
now this is epic.
Posted by raoahsan on August 12, 2010 at 7:43 am
Google done a wrong activity thats why the police done this