Boy oh boy. Does Germany’s ever have big Google by the little googles now.
Caught accidently (Google says) collecting private data while collecting WLAN data for their Street View photo archive (the first Google mess-up vis-a-vis Germany, as far as I’m concerned – other than offering Google here in the first place, I mean), Hamburg’s data protection supervisor dude has demanded that Google hand over their hard drive for inspection, or else.
Good thing for Google he doesn’t know that they actually have more than one.
Google apologized for collecting what it described as fragments of information from unsecured WLANs, saying its actions were inadvertent and the result of a programming error.
Observing Hermann 
Well, they’re using the rough location of ANY wifi signals they get cruising around for geo-location purposes, which is a benefit to the user – so I don’t know why Germans are getting so “my peas are touching my carrots” about this.
In fact, I’m sure Google has more efficient ways of invading your privacy than that.