Google has been accidentally gathering extracts of personal web activity from domestic wifi networks through the Street View cars it has used since 2007, it said last night. It was discovered as a result of a data audit demanded by Germany's data protection authority, and is likely to inflame critics of Google concerned about the web giant's use of private data... "It is now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open wifi networks, even though we never used that data in any Google products." Google said...this data consisted only of fragments of activity from open wifi networks. Password-protected web services, such as banking or secure HTTP addresses, would not have been included, and neither would data from password-protected wireless networks... [Google] has previously said other companies, including Skyhook and Microsoft, already scan wifi networks and gather information in this way.