Google has been again fined in a European country. Earlier, Germany and France have already fined Google. And now, Italy has fined it. Italy’s data protection watchdog has slapped the fine of $1.4 Million because the department has found that Google has violated Italy’s law regarding privacy protection. And Google has paid the fine to the authorities.
Regarding the imposed fine, a spokeswoman of the company has said that Google has been fined in old case which is filed in 2010.
In 2010, Google used Mountain View cars to record images of Italian streets. Since cars were not recognizable, people could not come to know that they would be clicked so they could not make their decisions regarding whether they should be clicked or not. Taking someone’s photographs without someone’s consent is completely a violation of his/her privacy. Some people complained regarding the same to the authorities. Google has been found guilty of doing the offense, so it has been fined.
Authorities also discussed about the capture of private electronic communications as part of the Street View photography, when the authorities were announcing the fine.
Last year, Germany fined Google 145,000 for “WiSpy” episode in 2008 – 2009 in which inadvertently intercepting emails, user names, passwords and other data from Wi-Fi networks. Moreover, Google has faced many lawsuits in the US and Europe for violating privacy. In 2011, French authorities also labeled a fine of 100,000 EURO for doing the same privacy right violation in France.
I don’t understand how a company like Google can make such silly mistakes. I hope that Google should learn the lessons from the imposed fine that it should not do such things in future.