A group of Tory MPs have condemned Google's accidental spying on emails which incompetent members of the public broadcast unencrypted into the street as "lazy and not that bad".
'We are disappointed that a company the size of Google would need to resort to accidentally caching publically broadcast information,' said MP Robert Halfon. 'We are working very hard to produce a complete and seedy database of every email and webpage viewed in Britain and we find this sort of cheap bootleg version insulting.'
Andy Coulson, the Conservative director of communications, said he was "saddened" that Google had failed to live up to the standards set by his previous employers, much less his current ones. 'I'm sorry, but this is the digital equivalent of overhearing a loud conversation in a public house. Creepy "Big Brother"-style snooping projects have moved on since those days, and it is unfortunate that Google have not kept up.'
The MPs are pressuring the Information Commissioner to be harsher in dealing with Google's infraction, saying the public have a right to privacy and respect, and that spying on them in such a basic and reasonable way goes against that right. Halfon said 'internet search giants should respect the public enough to spy on them in unambiguous, technologically advanced and suitably sinister ways.'