Google Street View Backlash Now in UK

The privacy backlash against Google Street View has now expanded to the United Kingdom.

Members of Parliament in the U.K. have accused Google of deliberately collecting Wi-Fi data for commercial gain. As reported earlier Friday, Google's Street View Car, which takes pictures of buildings along city streets, had collected passwords, e-mail messages, and Web addresses of users on unencrypted Wi-Fi networks.

During a two-hour parliamentary debate in the House of Commons Thursday on privacy, Google's questions of events was questioned, the BBC reported. A conservative MP, Robert Halfon, questioned Google's insistence that the details were sucked up by the cars as a result of its mistake.

Google's head of public relations told BBC's Today program that there was code that was intended to map wi-fi hotspots, but never intended to grab personal information, the BBC reported.

Google will not be prosecuted by London's Metropolitan Police over the privacy snafu, the Daily Telegraph reported.

But Google could still be fined up to 500,000 British pounds -- $802,000 in American dollars -- for collecting the data without people's knowledge.