Google has been accused on several occasions of being a monopoly and abusing its dominant position in the online search and advertising markets. So far, the company has escaped major investigations into its practices, but that may soon change.

Google announced in mid-May that it had discovered after a German regulatory authority asked for an audit of its data collection practices that it had accidentally captured Wi-Fi payload data. Google admits its Street View fleet captures SSID and MAC address data from protected Wi-Fi networks. Google still maintains that it captured the data accidentally and has not used the data in any Google products.

Later in May, a suit was filed against Google for capturing data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks in a Portland, Oregon court. Reuters reported that here have now been suits filed in courts in Washington D.C., California, and Massachusetts as well. On top of the suits pending against Google, the FTC has started an informal inquiry into the issue and today, Canada has announced that it is looking into the issue with an official investigation.

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said that she was concerned about the implications for privacy and that the only way to answer the lingering questions was to launch an investigation.

Stoddart said, "We have a number of questions about how this collection could have happened. We've determined that an investigation is the best way to find the answers."

Google still plans to cooperate fully with authorities in all countries where the WiFi data was captured. The suit filed in Oregon has lead to the court presiding over the case asking Google to make two copies of the data captured in the U.S. and turn them over to the court.