In message , at 17:15:06 on Wed, 12 Feb
2014, Someone Somewhere remarked:
Wasn't one of the things that Google was doing when doing street view
was to hoover up all SSID

yes

and related information

That was apparently an accident

so they could use it for rough positioning?

Android calls it "course" positioning. Although in urban areas it can be
quite precise.

Nowadays they do it differently - by correlating 'nearby SSID' and GPS
information from Android phones 'calling home'. In other words, Android
phone users, now there are enough, are doing the hoovering for them.
--
Roland Perry