The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday that it was investigating whether Google had violated laws when it collected Wi-Fi data as part of its Street View photo project, reports the New York Times. News of the F.C.C. investigation came just two weeks after the Federal Trade Commission halted its own inquiry into the Google project without taking action.
“Last month, Google disclosed that its Street View cars collected passwords, e-mails and other personal information wirelessly from unsuspecting people across the country,” Michele Ellison, chief of the F.C.C’s enforcement bureau, said Wednesday in a statement. Street View is a project that Google began in 2007 to add street-level pictures to its mapping service. The images are collected by cars that use cameras to capture 360-degree views and link the images with GPS data. The project has expanded across the United States and into at least 30 other countries…