Google now has a long history of disregarding privacy, and the WiFi sniffing is just one example. Other examples are not deleting email when requested by the user, the Buzz privacy fiasco, pervasive tracking (including forcing cookies on Safari via a loophole), and keeping data around for too long. Most of these problems have been addressed after public outcry, though the pervasive tracking is still there.
The WiFi sniffing was not to collect personal data. It was a 20% project to get an idea of what sort of traffic was on WiFis these days. No one ever looked at the actual data, and none of the data ever left the lab.
Not deleting email was just a matter of the way data is replicated in the datacenters.
The Buzz fiasco was just a mistake.
I don't see how Google was abusing a loophole when the 2009 Google code was written two years before the 2011 loophole was written.
And as for keeping data for too long, I don't know what you are talking about. Generally, Google likes to get rid of that stuff as soon as possible.
As for pervasive tracking, all google cares about is what sort of car you like. They could care less about any actual personal data.
Tax havens are an unfortunate fact of life. All big companies have to do it. Fix the loopholes and level the playing field. Don't expect individual company to drop their competitive edge when the other companies aren't.
Welcome to the real world.