Spain takes on Google over privacy violations in Street View

A Madrid judge has ordered a Google representative to appear in court in October as part of an investigation into whether the company committed a “computer crime” while taking shots of the city streets in Spain.

The service launched in more than 30 countries provides internet users with street-level views of public buildings and private residences,

The Spanish probe comes following Google’s acknowledgement in May that the technology used by its “Street View” cars had also inadvertently recorded fragments of people’s online activities broadcast over wireless networks for the past four years.

The company based in Mountain View, California, said it had collected information from non-secured Wi-Fi networks across the globe, but it maintains it never used the data and said it hasn’t broken any laws.

Judge Raquel Fernandino has issued the subpoena following a complaint filed in June by private internet watchdog and technology consulting agency Apedanica.

Google also is facing investigations or inquiries over this practice, which it says it has discontinued, in the United States, Germany and Australia.