SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Supreme Court has shown increasing interest in privacy cases recently, but not enough to intercede in a potential class action over Google Inc.’s Street View project. The high court denied the technology company’s petition for certiorari Monday, leaving intact a Ninth Circuit decision that opens Google to liability for scooping up data from residential Wi-Fi networks.
“The ruling creates substantial uncertainty regarding the scope of civil and criminal liability under the Wiretap Act,” Google’s lawyers at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati wrote in their petition. That uncertainty is particularly troubling given “the potential for sizeable statutory damage awards” under the Wiretap Act, they added.
