[magicalist]

No, just like photography being allowed in public does not mean that a video camera is going to be pointed at your house 24 hours a day and you'll be mandated to like it.

On the other hand, the existence of the paparazzi is not enough to justify banning the freedom to take pictures in public places.

All of these laws have to be carefully balanced to make sure we retain our rights.

[whackberry]

Sure, but what is the parallel here?

The paparazzi make a living from those photos, so there is a reason for them to be out there doing that(not saying I agree, just saying there's a reason for it).

What is Google doing driving around collecting personal data for? Google is a search engine with several great products around it. WTF are they driving around collecting data for? See? It doesn't make any sense, this is plain creepy.

[derefr]

...because Google Maps has backup-geolocation through a database of wi-fi access point ID/GPS-pair mappings, which can only be discovered by exactly this wardriving process? It's kind of the central point of the story, here.