Whether Google is liable for damages for secretly intercepting data on open WiFi routers across the United States is to be aired out in a Silicon Valley federal court.
Eight proposed class-actions from across the country that seek unspecified monetary damages from Google were consolidated this week and transferred to US District Judge James Ware in San Jose, California. Another five cases are likely to join.
The lawsuits allege Google violated federal and state privacy laws in collecting fragments of data from unencrypted wireless networks as its fleet of camera-equipped cars moseyed through neighborhoods snapping pictures for its Street View program.
The consolidation decision (
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2010/08/google-streetview.pdf) by the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation is likely to spark a legal frenzy by attorneys involved in the cases, as they jockey to win over Judge Ware and garner lead counsel status. That would give those lawyers intense media attention, as well as the biggest share in legal fees from a verdict or settlement.
Still, acquiring lead counsel status, a title given to lawyers whom the judge believes can best represent the interests of class members, comes with a huge risk as well.
The deep-pocketed Google maintains that it did nothing wrong, and is likely to put up a fierce and costly defense. Google, in response to government inquiries and lawsuits, claims it is lawful to use packet-sniffing tools readily available on the internet to spy on and download payload data from others using the same open WiFi access point.
So far, government regulators are not sure whether Google committed any legal wrongdoing. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced in June that as many as 30 attorneys general were examining the lawfulness of Google’s actions. Several other countries are probing the issue as well.
Mountain View, California-based Google called the inadvertent three-year-long collection "a mistake" and said it was the result of a programming error—code written for an early experimental project wound up in the Street View code, and Google says it did not realize the error until May, when German privacy authorities began questioning what data Google’s cameras were collecting.
The Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said it chose Silicon Valley because "Google is headquartered there, and most relevant documents and witnesses are likely located there." The panel also said many of the lawyers in the case “support centralization” there.
Judge Ware, a President George H.W. Bush appointee, has not set an initial hearing date.
