SleepyEgg

The question of whether Google is liable for damages for secretly intercepting data on open WiFi routers across the United States is boiling down to the definition of a “radio communication.”

That appears to be the legal theory embraced by the Silicon Valley federal judge presiding over nearly a dozen combined lawsuits seeking damages from Google for eavesdropping on open WiFi networks via its Street View mapping cars. The cars had been equipped with WiFi-sniffing hardware to record the names and MAC addresses of routers to improve Google location-specific services.