Seoul — In a startling turn of events at Google’s Korean operations, South Korean police on Tuesday raided search engine giants Seoul office under suspicion to probe whether the search firm used its mobile phone advertising platform AdMob to illegally collect private data, officials said.
The investigation into suspected accumulation of data on where a user is located without consent highlights growing concerns about possible misuse of private information as more people use mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) sent its investigators to Google Inc.’s local office in Yeoksam-dong, southern Seoul, in the morning to secure hard drives and other computer data associated with the company’s “AdMob” platform, a police cyber crime unit spokesman said in a statement.
“The raid was conducted to confirm the allegations that Google’s mobile advertising agency, AdMob, had illegally been employed to collect data on individuals’ locations,” an SMPA official said.
The inquiry comes as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is contemplating an extensive investigation into Google and reportedly alerting high-tech firms to gather data ahead of a probe of Google’s dominance of the Internet search industry.
Also, in January this year, the Korean police held Google on charges of accumulating personal data from Wi-Fi networks while producing its Street View mapping service, which allows users to see panoramic street scenes on the Google Maps site, in violation of the nation’s telecommunications law.
However, Google acknowledged that its Street View cars, which have been cruising and collecting photographs of cities in more than 30 countries, inadvertently gathered fragments of personal data from unsecured WiFi systems.
Although, it stated that it did nothing unlawful in South Korea and state prosecutors have yet to press charges.
The latest raid came just a week after South Korea’s telecoms regulator, the Korea Communications Commission, launched an inquiry into Apple Inc.’s Korea unit to see whether the US giant’s collection of location data from its iPhone and iPad users violates privacy rules in the Asian country.
However, Apple Inc defended its use of iPhone location data, but rebuffed that it was tracking the movements of customers, while consumer electronics giant Sony is grappling with a massive data breach.
“We suspect AdMob collected personal location information without consent or approval from the Korean Communication Commission,” a South Korean police official said.
Nonetheless, the two internet heavyweights, Google and Apple have both been targeted by U.S. lawmakers over their protection and use of consumer data from cellphone applications of personal data such as where users are located.
Google executives have widely discussed about the ability to target advertising to users based on location.
Moreover, South Korea’s top Internet portals recently lodged a complaint with anti-trust regulators against Google, claiming that it was unfairly stifling competition in the mobile Internet search market of one of the world’s most wired countries.
Google is a stellar performer in the ballooning smartphone and tablet market, as device makers are increasingly adopting its free Android operating platform to counter heavyweight Apple. Also, other global technology firms including Microsoft are trying to rein Google’s growth.
A Google spokesman confirmed that the police had visited its Seoul office and told Reuters the company was cooperating with their investigation.