Yes, likely. It'S plausible that Google captured Wifi signals in order to get to the SSID etc. to build a location database and they forgot to cut of the data part, possibly assuming it was encrypted anyways. Considering that they announced the mistake themselves and the short time the car was in receiving distance makes this a quit believable thing.

Similar here: The developers logged information onto the device itself in one version of the software and didn't hesitate to push a new release.

From an engineering perspective relatively small bugs. Impact a bit larger.

> and they forgot to cut of the data part, possibly assuming it was encrypted anyways

At the point in time when Google pulled that stunt, unprotected networks were still incredibly common. A company like Google playing dumb on that, or actually not knowing that, would be pretty sad.

Let's assume they did that on purpose: What's the purpose they get? Some random fragments of communication? They already have more relevant info via Google analytics and such about anybody, than what they gather while driving by ...

You’re being facetious, but it’s more like when the whole “Apple is tracking you through your iPhone” thing was going on - in that case, it was similarly a local database which was recording data which should have been erased, but it wasn’t transmitted to anyone.

I can completely see how this sort of thing could happen accidentally - not that it’s a great excuse for sloppy work, but mistakes do happen.