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Connecticut Attorney General Blumenthal joined by 37 states in questioning Google’s StreetView software

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Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he asked Google Inc. whether it tested its Street View software before using it, which he said should have revealed the unauthorized collection of personal data from wireless computer networks.

Blumenthal sent a letter today to Google senior counsel Stacey Wexler asking for a response by July 23, he said.

The Connecticut official last month demanded information on what Google called the inadvertent gathering of data from wireless networks, such as e-mail and passwords, as it took pictures of streets and houses for its Street View service.

“If Google tested this software, it should have known all along that Street View cars would snare and collect confidential data from homes across America,” the attorney general said in a statement. “Now the question is how it may have used — and secured — all this private information.”

Blumenthal, who’s leading a multistate investigation, said today in a statement his coalition now comprises 37 states. They include New York, Mississippi, Vermont, Nebraska, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Kansas, Montana and Rhode Island.

Full story: Google Quizzed by Blumenthal on Street View Testing Before Data-Gathering – Bloomberg