Countries Questioning Google's Intentions over Street View Data.

First it was "no." Then, "let us check." And finally, "yes we did it. Sorry!" As a cornered Google finally admits that its controversial Street View map service has indeed "accidentally" snooped on people's homes, cars and roads collecting 600 gigabytes of personal data in as many as 30 countries, it appears that few are ready to let Google off the hook so easily.

The beleaguered Internet search engine giant is increasingly facing global ire as countries across the world have started tightening a noose around Google, and even accusing it of criminal intent.

The several weeks-long fiasco around Street View's data collection methods received its biggest jolt yesterday when Privacy International (PI), the international watchdog, accused Google of criminal intent over Street View usage. PI said that although Google claimed "rogue code" in Street View software was a mistake, the report is misleading.

On the contrary, said PI, the system in Street View used for the Wi-Fi collection intentionally separated out unencrypted content (payload data) of communications and systematically wrote this data to hard drives. 

This is equivalent to placing a hard tap and a digital recorder onto a phone wire without consent or authorization, and almost certainly puts Google in the risk of prosecution in many countries.

"This action goes well beyond the 'mistake' promoted by Google. It is a criminal act commissioned with intent to breach the privacy of communications," PI said. "The communications law of nearly all countries permits the interception and recording of content of communications only if a police or judicial warrant is issued. All other interception is deemed unlawful."

But even as larger countries like the U.S. and U.K. are still weighing their options -- and putting pressure through a demand for an open investigation -- some of the smaller nations in Europe have already started clamping down.

The Austrian Data Protection Authority, for example, took its first punitive steps against Google when it placed a temporary ban on Street View before crafting local laws to make such snooping punishable.

DSK said that all collection of data or use of previously gathered information by Google Street View in Austria would be banned until it received from Google "a precise technical description of its data-collection activities," as well as an answer to a detailed questionnaire.

According to Austria's current laws, when data is deliberately extracted in a premeditated fashion with the purpose of selling that data, it becomes a crime. However, State Secretary for Media Josef Ostermayer, in a comment to the press, said that since the EU has not issued any data protection directive in regard to Street-View-like offenses, the country will be planning its own national law.

The Austrian move comes as Google is already under investigation by German prosecutors for "unauthorized interception of data," while inquiries have been initiated by several other European regulators, as well as Australia.

According to Simon Davies of PI, the U.K. is still reviewing the audit, since Google has failed to establish that its interception was not criminal  -- thereby attracting a violation of criminal law -- the country may be forced to go to Scotland Yard.

According to Google, the code in Street View that accidentally ended up collecting private data was part of an experimental Wi-Fi project undertaken by an unnamed engineer to improve location-based services.

"As we have said before, this was a mistake," said Google. "The [audit] report confirms that Google did indeed collect and store payload data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks, but not from networks that were encrypted. We are continuing to work with the relevant authorities to respond to their questions and concerns."

But PI has disputed this explanation. It argued that since Google always claims that all its projects are rigorously checked, the reasoning that the rogue code was a work of a lone engineer doesn't hold water.

"This action by Google cannot be blamed on the alleged single engineer who wrote the code. It goes to the heart of a systematic failure of management and of duty of care," PI said.

Meanwhile in the U.S., three congressmen (Henry Waxman D-Calif.; Joe Barton R-Texas; and Ed Markey D-Mass.) sent a detailed letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt expressing concern that Google did not disclose until long after the fact that consumers' Internet use was being recorded, analyzed and perhaps profiled. 

That letter follows a letter that EPIC -- the Washington, D.C.-based public interest research center -- sent to Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, suggesting that Google may have violated federal wiretap laws.