Google Explains Street View in Detail to Fend Off Privacy Concerns
The Street View function in Google Maps is designed to get up close and personal, providing 360° horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic street-level views. Google sends cars fitted with special cameras and other equipment to roam the countryside of various nations, taking pictures and matching images to a specific location using GPS devices. Street View even found heaven in Brooklyn, according to the New York Times. Faces and license plates are blurred before the panoramic images are served in Google Maps, but the service has still had its privacy hiccups since its launch in May 2007. People are still leery of the service, and can get creeped out seeing Google Street View cars patrolling their neighborhoods for footage. It lends some credence to the Google as Big Brother motif. So it comes as no surprise that Google today launched a fresh Street View Web page "that puts everything you wanted to know about Street View in one place," according to Google's Julie Zhou, associate product marketing manager. Check it out:
It's really a tutorial for Street View, telling users how to use it, where Street View imagery is available and where Google Street View vehicles are currently gathering new imagery. This is the kind of transparency that could help Google as it increasingly comes under fire for anti-competitive and privacy concerns. The vehicle locations are aggregated on this page:
The overview site will also show users what privacy safeguards are in place. For example, Street Views are not in real time and may have been collected months to years prior to when you see them. Here's how to get images of your house or street booted:
Do you feel comforted by this info? The overview site has done its job. My guess is there is still some unease about this service despite Google's welcome overture toward being transparent. |
Comments (3)
remove 801 Mullican Street from Street View. If I desire a photo of my home shown to the nation, I would publish it in all newspapers. This is an invasion of my privacy.
Posted by Thomas Jones | August 7, 2009 6:23 PM
Thomas:
If you live in a publicly accessible road, then anything viewable within naked-eye or camera distance from the street is considered public information and is therefore not protected as private or considered an invasion of privacy. It is viewable from the public domain. For example, if Google Street View did not exist, but I REAAALLY wanted to take a look at your house, I could fly to your nearest airport, rent a car, and drive on to your street to view your home to my hearts content. I am not invading your privacy or committing any sort of crime by doing so. There is nothing you can do about that type of behavior, because your house is viewable from a public street. All Google Street View is doing, is taking those pictures for the rest of us, so we can "take that trip" without leaving our living rooms.
If, however, you live on a private street that is not maintained or patrolled by a city, county, or state government, then the Google Cars cannot legally drive on your street, and therefore cannot take pictures of your house from that private street. If you really want to eliminate yourself from the public domain, move onto a private street. Sad, but true.
Take, for example, the photographing of abusive police work. If a cop is beating someone up on public or private property for no reason, and a bystander who is standing on the public sidewalk or on a public street happens to have a camera with them, it is within their constitutional rights to take photographs / video of the event. If YOU were the guy being beaten, you would hope that that bystander's images are protected. Gotta take the good with the bad.
Posted by Tim Radcliffe | August 10, 2009 3:36 AM
Not far enough
Kudos to Google for attempting to make Street View more user-friendly. But shame on them too for not going the extra step to remove all images of kids who are unsuspectingly photographed for anyone to see. Why place the burden on busy parents who already feel they can’t keep up with technology when it comes to protecting their families? Allowing parents an opt-out feature, while seemingly a helpful tool, isn’t enough – parents ought to be able to opt-in instead. It may come as a surprise to some, but not every parent cruises the Internet daily like most teenagers…Who’s helping those parents opt out of this intrusive and potentially dangerous program? Street View seems harmless enough. But considering the technology allows online users to view zoomed-in, high-resolution photographs of their homes, parks, schools, and in some cases, even children playing outside, sadly, it’s only a matter of time before someone uses this site to harm a child. It’s time Street View does more to protect our kids.
Stacie Rumenap
President
Stop Child Predators
www.stopchildpredators.org & www.stopinternetpredators.org
Posted by stacie rumenap | August 11, 2009 8:15 PM