Google pays tiny cost in wifi scandal

Google is poised to pay a modest $13m (€11.6m) to end a 2010 privacy lawsuit that was once called the biggest US wiretap case ever and threatened the internet giant with billions of dollars in damages.

The settlement would close the books on a scandal that was touched off by trucks used by Google for its Street View mapping project. Cars and trucks scooped up emails, passwords, and other personal information from unencrypted household wifi networks belonging to tens of millions of people all over the world.