Germany lashes out at Google for privacy breach

BERLIN: The German consumer protection minister is strongly criticising Google after the US internet giant acknowledged a privacy breach.

Ilse Aigner's ministry said in a statement Saturday the recent ``alarming incident'' shows that Google still lacks an understanding of the need for privacy.

The statement said ``sccording to the information available to us so far, Google has for years penetrated private networks, apparently illegally.''

Google Inc. issued an apology Friday, acknowledging it has been vacuuming up fragments of people's online activities broadcast over public Wi-Fi networks while expanding a mapping feature called ``Street View.''

Google said it only recently discovered the problem in response to an inquiry from German regulators.