That's probably exactly what happened. Every time the privacy chicken littles start up, remind them that Google has precisely no use for the random data passing through each hotspot. None. Nada. It's completely useless to their organization. Junk data to be deleted later.
Then why store the data? And why would Google refuse to release the data to regulators because "it might break privacy and wiretapping laws if it shared the material?"
Because it's automatically stored? Google is still comprised of humans who make mistakes, sometimes horrible ones.
Because they were in a pretty bad position once they found out what was happening? I can see an "Oh sh-, we broke the law" moment happening at the highest levels of the organization.
> It's completely useless to their organization. Junk data to be deleted later.
At least one person at Google thought it could be potentially useful:
> The report, quoting the engineer’s original proposal, gives a somewhat different impression. The data, the engineer wrote, would “be analyzed offline for use in other initiatives.” Google says this was never done.
I think Google is guilty of arrogance wrt privacy, rather than a fiendish plan to spy on people.
