From: PCWorld
Google has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by an appeals court that its collection of data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks is not exempt under federal wiretap laws.
The company argues that its data collection does not violate the Wiretap Act as it fell under an exemption that makes it lawful to intercept electronic communications that are readily accessible to the general public.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in September that Wi-Fi network data collected by Google was not radio communications that is readily accessible to the public. The ruling was in an appeal by Google from a decision by a District Court in a consolidated class-action suit.
The Wiretap Act provides that radio communications that are readily accessible to the general public are exempt from the prohibition on interception if they are not “scrambled or encrypted.”
The question posed by Google to the Supreme Court, docketed this week, is whether the 9th Circuit got it wrong in holding that “radio communications” under the Wiretap Act are restricted to “predominantly auditory broadcasts” and do not include Wi-Fi communications even though these communications are transmitted using radio waves.
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