Following the heated debate with the FCC over what information had to be redacted, the search giant has released the FCC report into its Street View service to the Los Angeles Times. But what we can call it as strange or interesting is that Google has only removed personal names from the document. The report pointed out towards an engineer for the privacy breach, with his colleagues and managers denying any knowledge that the software collected personal data. The report describes how the engineer told two other coders that the software would collect this payload data, as well as including it in a document distributed to the entire Street View team. The managers of the program have said that they did not read the document, while other engineers have pleaded ignorance of the entire issue and “did not notice” that the software would behave in this way. The report also includes an accusation by the FCC that Google deliberately withheld an email that included the engineer’s view on personal data with a senior Street View manager – results into causing the company to pay a fine of $25,000.
