Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said Tuesday that Arkansas and other states have reached a $7 million settlement with search giant Google Inc. over allegations the company collected data from unsecured wireless networks while taking photographs for its Street View service.
Arkansas’ share of the settlement is $114,712.97.
“No company should violate an individual’s privacy rights by collecting information without their permission,” McDaniel said in a news release. “While my office will investigate these types of practices, there are steps consumers can take to protect their privacy online, such as ensuring that their Internet networks are secure.”
In an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance filed with the states, Google acknowledged that information collected might have included addresses of requested web pages, partial or complete email communications, and confidential or private information being transmitted to or from the network while Street View cars were driving by, between 2008 and March 2010.
Google has since disabled or removed the equipment and software used to collect the data, agreed not to collect any more information without notice and consent, and has agreed to destroy the information that was collected as soon as legally practical, the attorney general’s office said.
Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia participated in a two-year investigation that led to the agreement.
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