Google, Wi-Fi snooping and the ever-shifting “creepy” line

While there has been much public outrage about Google’s snooping of wireless networks via its Street View cars, it’s interesting to note that even the Federal Communications Commission said the company’s data capturing wasn’t illegal, since the networks in question were effectively public (the Federal Trade Commission also dropped a similar case). Is this a sign of how broken the laws around privacy are, or is the Street View furor an over-reaction?

Privacy advocate Chris Soghoian says that the FCC should be hauled before a congressional committee for failing to reveal this information sooner, and some commenters on Twitter and elsewhere have suggested that Google should be fined millions of dollars for what it did. Some are even declaring that the engineer involved, who invoked the Fifth Amendment during the FCC investigation and refused to testify, should be sent to prison for his involvement in the project.