Google Admits to Collecting User Data over Unsecured WiFi Networks

By Ian Bell May 14, 2010

Google says it has scooped up snippets of people’s online activities broadcast over unprotected Wi-Fi networks during the past four years.

The admission made Friday is likely to raise more worries about potential privacy breaches as Google gathers volumes of personal information through its search engine and other services.

Google picked up fragments of e-mails and Web addresses while its cars were photographing neighborhoods for the “Street View” feature on its mapping service.

The company says it only recently discovered it has accumulated about 600 gigabytes of data transmitted over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries. Google says none of the information has appeared in its search engine or other services.

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What is a whole-home mesh Wi-Fi network, and do you need one?

Linksys router on a shelf.

With more people working, studying, gaming, and streaming from home today, it’s important to have fast, reliable Wi-Fi coverage at home. Regardless of the size of your home, a whole-home mesh Wi-Fi system is one of the best solutions to blanket your house with Wi-Fi.

Unlike a standard router, which broadcasts a Wi-Fi signal over a finite area, mesh networks are able to spread the signal to cover a large home or office. Also known as a whole-home Wi-Fi system, mesh networks came into popularity in 2014 with the launch of the original Eero. Though the idea of a mesh network has been around long before that and was widely used in office and public networks, its entry into the home in the mid-2010s radically changed Wi-Fi for consumers.

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4 things you can do right now to prep your Wi-Fi network for holiday houseguests

Netgear's Nighthawk RAXE500 tri-band router.

Every year, damn near everyone in my family drives out to rural Oregon and piles into my mom's house for the holidays. It's ridiculous. Suddenly, the number of occupants in the house balloons from just two people to well over a dozen -- and every year, mom's Wi-Fi just can't handle all the extra network traffic.

Or at least it couldn't. Things are different this year. I got tired of dealing with glitchy video calls, dial-up-speed page loads, and Netflix movies that would pause to buffer every 15 seconds -- so I made some small adjustments to her network setup. Thanks to those little tweaks, I'm proud to report that my mom's snail-like rural broadband connection can now comfortably handle a house full of web users -- and yours can, too.

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5 Ways to optimize your home Wi-Fi network for remote school and work

teacher leading a remote classroom

Back-to-school season is upon us, and for many households, that unfortunately means a return to remote schooling. Instead of heading out to a classroom in person, many kids will again attend school this year by firing up video calls and submitting assignments online. Ultimately, this means your home Wi-Fi network will soon need to handle more traffic -- especially if you're a parent who's currently working from home. So in order to ensure you don't run into any network congestion issues, we've put together a handful of tips to help you make your home Wi-Fi as stable and reliable as possible in the months ahead. Here's the lowdown:
Get a multiband router
This one might be a no-brainer, but if the router you’re using doesn’t offer multiple frequency bands, then you’re missing out on one of the best parts of modern routers. Whereas most single-band routers operate on the 2.4GHz frequency band, newer dual- and tri-band routers also provide additional networks on the 5GHz frequency band, which has a number of big advantages. Namely, the 5GHz connections can transmit data faster than 2.4GHz ones, which makes them better for households where lots of high-bandwidth activities take place -- like Zoom calls, online gaming, and 4K video streaming.
Place your router strategically
The only downside of a 5GHz connection, however, is that the higher frequency doesn’t travel through walls, furniture, and other obstacles quite as well as a 2.4GHz connection can. This is why router placement is important. Ideally, you should place yours near your most important internet-connected devices, as high off the ground as possible, and in a place that’s free of obstructions. Doing so will ensure that you get the best possible speeds for all your devices -- especially those that have fixed locations and can’t move around to wherever reception is good like phones and laptops can.