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Multi-State Investigation Launched Against Google

Google may be in big, big trouble.  Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who was the first Attorney General to scrutinize the company over its collection of sensitive WiFi data, is...
Multi-State Investigation Launched Against Google
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  • Google may be in big, big trouble.  Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who was the first Attorney General to scrutinize the company over its collection of sensitive WiFi data, is now leading a probe in which officials representing more than 30 states have expressed interest.

    GoogleIndeed, according to a statement released by Blumenthal’s office, over 30 states participated in a recent conference call on the subject, and considering what an early stage the investigation’s at, it seems possible that several representatives might have just missed the figurative memo or had scheduling conflicts.

    Blumenthal is pressing forward regardless of inexact numbers, though.  He said, "While we hope Google will continue to cooperate, its response so far raises as many questions as it answers.  The company must provide a complete and comprehensive explanation of how this unauthorized data collection happened, why the information was kept if collection was inadvertent and what action will prevent a recurrence."

    Then here’s a key sentence: "Our investigation will consider whether laws may have been broken and whether changes to state and federal statutes may be necessary."

    Of course, all this comes not long after a French data protection agency claimed that Google managed to collect people’s passwords and comprehensible parts of emails, not just random 1s and 0s.

    The search giant had better hope the U.S. Attorneys General don’t reach the same conclusion.

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