As Czech Position reports, Google has agreed to several conditions put forth by the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection:

• Google will take photos closer to ground level to avoid photographing personal property over fences/walls.
• Google will give Czech citizens a method to demand that their property be removed from Street View.
• Google will blur license plates/registration information on vehicles.
• Google will pre-announce when it’s planning to photograph in Czech towns and cities.

The concessions are similar to ones that Google has made in other countries.

Google began Street View operations in the Czech Republic back in the spring of 2009, and put images online in the fall. But by December of that year, government officials shut down the service over privacy concerns.

The opt-out requires a change in the name of the wireless network (the SSID) to include _nomap at the end of the name. In other words, if your wireless network is named “McGeehome,” you’d need to rename that to “McGeehome_nomap.” (And frankly, I’d prefer you use your own last name while you’re at it.)

Google says this method “provides the right balance of simplicity as well as protection against abuse. Specifically, this approach helps protect against others opting out your access point without your permission.” The company is also encouraging other location providers to adopt and respect the _nomap signal in the future.

In its help pages, Google says its system will pick up the new SSID name and process the opt-out the next time your router sends location information to Google’s servers through a reliable channel.

Google’s been in trouble around the world since admitting that its Street View vehicles collected personal information through unencrypted WiFi networks. Google has repeatedly said the data collection was an accident.

This _nomap opt-out method was something that several data protection agencies in Europe requested Google provide to safeguard against similar problems in the future. Google promised an opt-out method in September.

(Stock image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.)

A recent survey of 50 convicted burglars by UK security firm Friedland Response and reported by the UK’s Sky News argues that Google and social media tools are being used extensively to target people.

Nearly 80 percent of the 50 ex-burglars surveyed strongly believed that Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare were being used by current criminals, and nearly 75 percent stated that they thought Google Street View was also involved in theft planning.

Just over 50 percent said that including your whereabouts in social media status updates was “a mistake” and helpful to burglars.

Other findings:

• Home burglaries yield £500 ($782) of stolen goods or valuables on average
• The average burglary related insurance claim is £1200 ($1,877)
• Nearly 80 percent of the burglars said a simple home alarm system would deter them from targeting the home

There are some caveats that must be mentioned:

• The survey sample was very small: 50 former burglars
• The ex-burglars stated their beliefs and perceptions of what’s going on now; they weren’t discussing how they committed their own crimes

The advice given in response to the findings is: be aware that others may be using your tweets and check-ins to decide whether to “burgle” your home. However there are a range of common-sense methods to deter burglaries, such as: don’t hide keys near doorways, don’t leave doors and windows unlocked or open and don’t put valuable items in places where they can be seen clearly from outside the home.

In a blog post yesterday, Google says the opt-out will be available to people around the world.

Even though the wireless access point signals we use in our location services don’t identify people, we think we can go further in protecting people’s privacy. At the request of several European data protection authorities, we are building an opt-out service that will allow an access point owner to opt out from Google’s location services. Once opted out, our services will not use that access point to determine users’ locations.

Google has been in hot water for about 18 months now, since the first revelation that the company’s Street View vehicles had been collecting personal information over unencrypted WiFi networks. Google has insisted that the data was collected accidentally, but that hasn’t stopped some governments — particularly in Europe — from demanding increased privacy measures from Google. Many countries have determined that Google broke local privacy laws, but only one — France — has so far issued a financial penalty.

Google says the opt-out service will be available later this fall.

This is the first product to emerge from Google’s controversial acquisition of travel software company ITA, which closed in April and included concessions and guarantees to existing ITA customers such as Kayak, Microsoft, Orbitz, Hotwire and TripAdvisor. The past five months have been spent on integration of the ITA team and technology in Boston.

This Flight Search beta product breaks no new ground for online travel but points the way toward something more ambitious for Google. The company hinted at that more ambitious product vision in the blog post that announced the acquisition in July 2010:

[W]e think there is room for more competition and greater innovation. Google has already come up with new ways to organize hard-to-find information like images, newspaper archives, scholarly papers, books and geographic data. Once we’ve completed our acquisition of ITA, we’ll work on creating new flight search tools that will make it easier for you to search for flights, compare flight options and prices and get you quickly to a site where you can buy your ticket.

Presented in a way that is similar to Google’s current recipe-search tools and UI, a query such as “flights from sf to nyc” will trigger the appearance of a “flights” filter in the left column. That in turn leads to a more “vertical” experience that enables users to search for flights in a variety of different ways.

Below is a screen showing the new flight results page. Fliters on the left allow for refinement of the search by airline, loyalty program, number of stops and so on (not unlike what already exists at many competing travel sites). Users can manipulate dates, flight duration and pricing. They can aslso search for available flights based on destination and budget, a la Travel Muse.

Once an outbound and return flight are selected — there are no one-way or multi-city capabilities right now — users are taken to an airline website to book. The content presented in Flight Search results is all organic. However, as the image below indicates, the booking link is or could be an ad. According to Google this is the only advertising in Flight Search.

Google said it’s still experimenting with the model. It’s not entirely clear what would happen if the selected airline were not an advertiser. Are only advertiser flights being included in the data presented? I assume not. However when most travel sites such as Kayak or Orbitz deliver a user to an airline or hotel site there’s lead-gen fee or bounty paid. And Google may have struck agreements with all the major carriers accordingly.

As the screens above indicate a map figures prominently in the UI. However Google isn’t using Street View or integrating hotel search or its local business database (including reviews) into the product. That’s the opportunity in one sense: to fully leverage Google’s database and existing products to create totally new travel planning tools and user experiences. This is the “promise” of the ITA acquisition.

However Google famously refuses to discuss future plans. Indeed, Google won’t say anything beyond the fact that Google Flight Search is a first step and that it will improve over time. ITA’s “matrix search” may hold some clues to the future of Google Flight and Travel search products:

• Geo Search – search by airport code, city, or nearby airport selector
• Event Finder – plan your trip with a listing of events and things to do
• Interactive Calendar – explore date ranges and find the lowest fares
• Real-time Filters – focus on flights that suit your preferences
• Color-coded Time Bars – compare flights at a glance

Along those lines, one can easily imagine many creative and well integrated user experiences that take advantage of Google’s existing assets. Bing Visual Search for Travel is an example of a creative use of search, content and images for travel planning.

Right now Google Flight Search is a useful, if limited, tool. But absent some of the novel and creative innovations I allude to above, it doesn’t really put pressure on any of the established travel search brands or OTAs. Over time, that could change of course.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Ministry of Justice’s decision comes after months of discussion with Google about how to allow Street View in the country while still protecting concerns related to individual privacy and the bigger issue of violence/terrorism. The government offered an online poll about Street View, and 70% of respondents voted in favor of allowing Street View to launch in Israel.

As Globes.co.il reports, Google has agreed to four conditions:

1. Israel will be able to initiate any civil legal challenges against Google inside Israel, even though the Street View data will be hosted outside the country.

2. Google won’t challenge the authority of Israel’s Law, Information and Technology Authority to initiate criminal or administrative challenges if Google violates state law.

3. Google will give the public a way to request additional blurring of images (beyond Google’s normal level of blurring) after the images are published online.

4. Google must use online and offline channels to inform the public about the Street View service, the right to ask for additional blurring and its planned driving routes. Google’s Street View cars must also be clearly marked so the public can identify them.

What’s not mentioned in any of the articles I’ve seen so far is whether Google has been restricted from driving/photographing certain sensitive areas. When we wrote about Street View’s likely arrival in Israel back in March, government officials were talking about refusing to allow Street View to photograph “security installations” and other similar locations.

Mordechai Kedar, a retired Lt. Col. who served 25 years in Israeli intelligence, has been critical of the country’s interest in bringing Street View there. He tells the AP that military locations should be barred from Street View: “God forbid a country should need to reveal its secret facilities just because Google invented something. The lives of people are more important, and the security of countries is more important.”

Also not mentioned is where (and when) Street View will begin driving in Israel. In our first article, we mentioned that some reports had suggested only three cities would be included at first: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Google has typically been reluctant to give specifics about its Street View plans in other countries, and that’s also true where Israel is concerned. Contacted this morning with the above questions, a Google spokesperson provided this statement:

“We’re pleased that the DPA has approved the operation of the Street View service, and hope to update on our plans soon.”

Postscript, August 24: According to an article on Ynetnews.com, Google will begin driving in Israel in a month-and-a-half, and the first city will be Jerusalem. This has not been confirmed by Google.

According to Bloomberg, prosecutors have offered Google a €150,000 penalty (currently about $215,000 USD) for the gaffe that Google has repeatedly said was accidental. Google has three months to accept the penalty; if it doesn’t, prosecutors may take the case to court, where Google could face higher fines and perhaps even time in prison.

A Google spokesperson confirmed the settlement offer and told Bloomberg, “We have to study it carefully.”

Belgium was slow to investigate Google’s data collection, having only launched its investigation earlier this year. Many other countries have already completed investigations and found that Google violated their privacy laws. But so far, France’s €100,000 fine in March is the only actual penalty Google has faced.

According to a CNET article today, Google collected those WiFi access points along with the location of client devices including mobile phones and desktop computers.

The cars were supposed to collect the locations of Wi-Fi access points. But Google also recorded the street addresses and unique identifiers of computers and other devices using those wireless networks and then made the data publicly available through Google.com until a few weeks ago.

The French data protection authority, known as the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) recently contacted CNET and said its investigation confirmed that Street View cars collected these unique hardware IDs.

Of the dozens of countries that have (or still are) investigated Google’s WiFi data collection, France is the only one to issue a fine. In the US, the FTC closed its inquiry without penalties last year.

But those investigations apparently focused only on the data transferred via access points and made no mention of the collection of device locations. It seems likely that privacy watchers and government officials will call for further investigations based on this latest development.

Google declined to comment to CNET for their report.

Postscript: After our article was published, a Google spokesperson contacted us to share a statement that has also been shared with CNET:

Location-based services provide tremendous value to consumers and the economy. In order to provide these location services, Google and many other companies detect nearby, publicly available signals from Wi-Fi access points and cell towers and use this data to quickly approximate a rough position. This can be done by using information that is publicly broadcast, including that list of Wi-Fi access points you see when you use the “join network” option on your computer and the access point’s MAC address.

We collect the publicly broadcast MAC addresses of Wi-Fi access points. If a user has enabled wireless tethering on a mobile device, that device becomes a Wi-Fi access point, so the MAC address of such an access point may also be included in the database. Wi-Fi access points that move frequently are not useful for our location database, and we take various steps to try to discard them.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, Judge James Ware has put the case on hold and given Google the go-ahead to appeal his ruling last month that kept open a group of consolidated lawsuits that accuse Google of violating the Federal Wiretap Act. In that decision, Ware dismissed a pair of claims against Google, but refused to grant Google a dismissal of the wiretapping charges.

According to the Chronicle:

The case is the first in which a federal court is being asked to determine whether a company can be found liable under federal wiretap laws based on allegations that it intentionally intercepted data from a wireless home network, according to Ware’s opinion.

“In light of the novelty of the issues presented, the court finds that its June 29 order involves a controlling question of law as to which there is a credible basis for a difference of opinion,” Ware wrote in his ruling today.

A Google spokesperson told the paper that Google is “pleased that the court has allowed us to appeal its recent decision on our motion to dismiss,” and reiterated the company’s belief that the lawsuit’s claims are “without merit.”

For more background, see the stories listed below.

Wednesday’s decision by US District Judge James Ware, first reported by Wired, actually dismissed two of the three claims against Google, but left open the group’s ability to sue Google for potentially violating the Wiretap Act:

… the Court finds that Plaintiffs plead facts sufficient to state a claim for violation of the Wiretap Act. In particular, Plaintiffs plead that Defendant intentionally created, approved of, and installed specially-designed software and technology into its Google Street View vehicles and used this technology to intercept Plaintiffs’ data packets, arguably electronic communications, from Plaintiffs’ personal Wi-Fi networks. Further, Plaintiffs plead that the data packets were transmitted over Wi-Fi networks that were configured such that the packets were not readable by the general public without the use of sophisticated packet sniffer technology. Although Plaintiffs fail to plead that the wireless networks fall into at least one of the five enumerated exceptions to Section 2510(16)’s definition of “readily accessible to the general public” for radio communications, the Court finds that the wireless networks were not readily accessible to the general public….

Google had argued that the case should be thrown out, in part, on a technicality that the wireless signals that it intercepted were a “radio communication” and were “readily accessible” because they were unencrypted, thus making the company’s actions exempt from the Wiretap Act. The judge disagreed, saying Google’s claim that it didn’t violate the act is “misplaced.”

The court did grant Google’s motion to dismiss claims that its action violated various state wiretap laws, saying that the federal Wiretap Act takes precedence, and also dismissed claims that Google violated California’s Business and Professional Code.

Asked about Wednesday’s ruling, a Google spokesperson gave us this statement:

We believe these claims are without merit and that the Court should have dismissed the Wiretap claim just as it dismissed the plaintiffs’ other claims. We’re still evaluating our options at this preliminary stage.

The lawsuit stems from Google’s collection of personal data over unsecured Wi-Fi networks via its Street View cars beginning in May 2007. As the cars drove around taking photographs, software installed on the cars also picked up personal information from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Later investigations found that Google had collected e-mail addresses and e-mails with usernames, passwords, home addresses, phone numbers and more. (See our Google Maps Privacy: The Street View & Wifi Scorecard for more background on this.)

Google has repeatedly apologized for the data collection and said it was accidental. The company also announced several changes to its internal privacy practices in late 2010.