Google apologises over breach of British data law

GOOGLE violated Britain’s data protection laws when its Street View mapping service recorded data from private wireless networks, the country’s information commissioner said yesterday.

The American internet search giant will escape any fines, however, so long as it pledges not to do it again.

Google drew international outrage after it emerged that its Street View cars, which take street-level photographs to illustrate the company’s popular mapping service, had also been scooping up e-mails, internet addresses and passwords from unencrypted wireless networks.