Forum Moderators: goodroi
A caravan of cars and trucks mounted with cameras has been driving city streets for months, snapping close-up photographs of homes, shops and public places.Any people who got in the way became subjects in Google's version of "Candid Camera."
The Internet company late Monday began incorporating street-level photos from Los Angeles, San Diego and some Orange County cities into its Google Maps program. The additions expanded an online service that thrilled some digital-map buffs and freaked out privacy advocates when it launched in May in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York and three other cities.
The photos can help people scout out places they plan to visit. But when Google's camera shutters click, they capture more than buildings.
Google's Street Level Maps Pictures Continues To Draw Privacy Concerns [latimes.com]
I also wonder how many folks have prepared spam for those those images, with messages such as "eat at Joes," etc. You know the form. ;)
Street View exposed a bad habit of Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. Bankston, a secret smoker, had the bad luck to be caught sneaking a cigarette in a shot pointed out to him by a journalist.After he complained, Google removed the picture.
Every other time I've heard this particular anecdote, Mr. Bankston was caught by Amazon's A9 Maps cameras (a service which no longer exists). It was A9 who removed him from their database... But, for the sake of the story, it sure sounds better if it was Street View as the boogeyman.
Never let the facts get in the way of a good story! ;)
[businessweek.com...]
"Coincidentally, Bankston also happens to be one of the leading advocates for digital privacy." Coincidentally my eye!
Reminds me of the mugging a few years ago where evidence was provided by 2000 photographs provided by 50 Japanese tourists on a passing bus.
[edited by: Quadrille at 12:59 pm (utc) on Aug. 11, 2007]
The photos don't have to be provocative to raise privacy concerns.http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5045824.htmlLaura Lednicky was surprised to learn her Rice Boulevard home was on the Internet for all to see.
"You don't want to overreact, but this goes too far," she said, looking at her house on Google Street View for the first time. "It's creepy. Big Brother is Google."
I think she would be surprised to learn about my new Street View cloaking product too. "My heavens!"
how dare anyone snap a photo of me pulling on a fag in a public place where there is no expectation of privacy.
Here in the US, that photo would be presented as evidence in your trial. :)
