Sorry Bas but I stopped reading when you mentioned the Google street-view incident. “Years worth of data” is a misleading claim. They were able to receive traffic that was sent on unencrypted wi-fi networks for all of the 3-7 seconds that the street-view car was within range (while it drove past).  You are probably right the total of data they obtained probably sums to the length of well over a year but that doesn’t mean anything.

They had a legitimate reason for getting the data (they wanted to overlay networks onto their maps) they just didn’t think through the methodology for getting it carefully enough. 

It’s also completely unfair to ignore how the big G handled the situation, they discovered it, told people then dealt with it privately and invited the authorities to check they’d done what was required.