Anthony's Posterous

Google Street View Scanning & Mapping Your MAC Address?

Why in the world would Google’s Street View cars be scanning for MAC addresses? According to the German Federal Data Protection Commissioner, Street View cars are equipped with Wi-Fi scanners that are mapping the location of wireless networks. What the?!?

The data-protection official is worried that Google is acquiring various pieces of information about WiFi networks, including their location, name and protection protocol. The worse part, Schaar says, is that all this data is linked to a physical MAC address that could then be used to link IP addresses to real locations and, by extension, to real people.