EPIC president Marc Rotenberg said by e-mail that none of Google's Wi-Fi collection activities would have to light if European data protection officials hadn't opened an investigation. "The public also does not understand that while the interception of communications traffic may have been accidental, the collection of Wi-Fi device name and location information was not," Rotenberg said.

Google reiterated what it has been saying since the controversy first began. "We are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted networks," the company said in a statement.

As soon as Google realized what was happening it stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from its Street View cars and informed appropriate authorities, the company said. "We assured the FTC, which has closed its inquiry, we did not want and have never used the payload data in any of our products and services," the company said, adding that it will delete the data as "soon as possible."

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Privacy Topic Center.