Google faces privacy fine

Google Inc. “impeded” and “delayed” a U.S. inquiry into its data-collection practices, according to the latest in a series of regulatory probes of the company’s privacy practices.

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking a $25,000 fine after examining how Google gathered personal e-mails, text messages and other materials through its Street View location service, the agency said in the filing on Friday.

The company has come under mounting scrutiny from regulators over how it handles information.

In October 2010, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission ended its investigation of Street View after the company said it would improve privacy safeguards. Last year, Google agreed to 20 years of independent privacy audits to settle claims with the FTC that it deceived users and violated its own privacy policies with the Buzz social network.

“Google unlawfully intercepted and stored millions of wireless communications from Wi-fi routers,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which requested the FCC investigation. “We believe that is a violation of the federal wiretap act.”

For three years starting in May 2007, Google collected content from wireless networks that wasn’t needed for its locationbased services, according to the FCC filing. Google gathered so-called payload data, including e-mail and text messages, passwords, Internet-usage history and “other highly sensitive personal information,” the FCC said.