FTC asked to probe Google Street View privacy snafu

Two of Google's chief congressional critics on Wednesday called on federal regulators to investigate whether the search company's inadvertent collection of Street View Wi-Fi data violates the law.

In a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz, they prod the agency to evaluate whether accidental capture of brief snippets of Wi-Fi traffic is an "unfair or deceptive act" that has harmed consumers.

On Friday, Google acknowledged that its Street View cars had unintentionally intercepted fragments of data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks for periods of 200 milliseconds at a time. Google's blog post said it was code that should not have ended up in the final product, and that it was contacting regulators and deleting the data.

For more on this story, read FTC asked to probe Street View privacy snafu on CNET News.