[huggyface]

Payload data can be used to inform their advertising efforts.

The data collected while a streetview car drove by can inform their advertising efforts? You really have to bear a serious anti-Google grudge to entertain such a ridiculous, technologically laughable premise.

[jbigelow76]

You don't think the contents of email messages could be used to inform advertising data? Even in aggregate? Do ads in gmail show up at random?

I don't have a grudge against google, I like my android phone over an iPhone and use google Reader and Chrome because they are the best at what they do, and use google analytics because it's good enough for the price. I just don't have any illusions as to what they expect in return for their free products.

[throwawaay]

Email, of course, contains tons of personal information. If linked to a user's identity, it could clearly be used to inform advertising. However, emails in aggregate probably don't give you any more useful advertising insight than the Web corpus itself, which Google could obviously use if it wanted.

Further, why would Google need to log random bits of WiFi payload data to extract a relatively small amount of email when they operate Gmail?! If the decision to purposefully violate people's privacy had actually been made, wouldn't it be easier to look at Gmail than to use Street View?

There would be more data, better data, and you'd have it more quickly than if you sent a bunch of cars to drive all over the world, collect a bunch of extraneous crap, then wait for them to come back, and screen it for something useful.

Frankly, that's absurd.