Google still spying with data

After being caught spying on people across Europe and Australia with its Wi-Fi-slurping street-view cars, Google told angry regulators that it would delete the ill-gotten data.

Google broke its promise.

Britain's Information Commissioner's Office received a letter from Google in which the company admits it kept a "small portion" of the electronic information it had been meant to get rid of.

"Google apologises for this error," said Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, in the letter published on its website.

It said in a statement that Google agreed to delete all that data nearly two years ago, adding that its failure to do so "is cause for concern".

Ireland's deputy commissioner for data protection, Gary Davis, called Google's failure "clearly unacceptable".

Other countries affected include France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Australia.

- AP