The funny thing about all this is that (perhaps this case aside) Google is getting a lot of bad PR because they actually tell people what they do.

Meanwhile, everyone uses airmiles cards, facebook, and numerous other services that abuse privacy and bury the details in fine print. Nobody gets upset. Did you know that by using an airmiles card all your transactions are sent off for data mining? Did you know that Target used transaction data to predict that teenage girl was pregnant before she even told her parents and sent baby related print ads to her house?

Your privacy is being violated all the time, constantly, and nobody tells you about it. If you care so much about the ethics of recording traffic from open wifi networks, then I hope you also pick up your sword against the massive tide of less obvious and more directly nefarious privacy violations.