Compromise offer by Google on data

Google will this week offer a compromise with European data protection authorities, which are demanding that the Internet company hand over data it intercepted from private WiFi connections.

The search company is facing a dilemma over the handling of the data, which it intercepted while taking photographs for its Street View service. Data protection authorities in Germany, France and Spain have asked Google to hand over the hard drives containing the "payload" data - which could contain anything from e-mails to website addresses being visited by individuals - for an investigation. However, other data protection authorities and privacy campaigners, such as the US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, fear that handing over the hard drives would harm privacy further. Google said its external lawyers had advised the company not to hand over the data. Google is expected to propose a compromise solution this week, but did not outline what this would be.