Google Street View - Cool Tool or Gross Invasion Of Privacy?

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:17 am

Google streetview is great fun actually! Have spent a good half hour checking out my old neighborhood in LA! Smile

However, as far as privacy goes it's not ideal but most people don't seem to think too much about their credit card usage being screened, that library books borrowed are logged to as well as activities online. I think all mails sent are screened (at least in the US and Sweden) and saved to be checked further if there are particular key words in the mails. The talk of a super datebase in the UK is rather worrying as that would keep copies of all phone calls, text messages and e-mail sent. All of the previous are saved already but by the ISP/mobile providers and not by a central database run by the government (imagine how many sensitive details they'll be able to lose then!) I'm not on top of what exactly the amended Patriot Act does to destroy privacy but let's just face it most citizens of western countries are watched by Big Brother in a greater extent than most people care to know.

The difference between Google streetview and government snooping is that anyone can access Google but only certain government agencies can access your credit card or library borrowing history...

Sorry, my brain is gearing up for academic mode again: question everything! Beware! Confused

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:18 am

Imagine this scenario. There you are chewing the cud with the beautiful wife of your next door neighbour in her halter top over a cooling jug of Pimms in the front garden whilst her violent hubby is grafting at work. Then flash bang wallop, the Google car takes the incriminating picture. Next time it comes round there will be a 'For Sale' sign outside my gaffe and a suit for damages in the post to Googlenosey.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:19 am

@Red - same applies for them so go ahead and snap those pics. You know you want to Laughing

No, really people do have an exception of privacy in their backyards but if they move into where they can be seen from second story window of a neighbor's then the expectation of privacy is much lower.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:56 am

I wonder if we did a search for downtown Lagos, we'd find Ghost's lads poncing about in silly costumes having their photos taken.... Laughing

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:01 am

Sounds like the start of a great bait: Mugu Maps Very Happy

Get them to catalogue the streets of Lagos for us.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:31 am

I can foresee a new business venture....
'Google proof tinfoil home enclosure kits!'

Quote:

Surround your home in stylish and durable GOOGLEPROOF tinfoil and never worry about being seen by the world, again! Now you can come out of the basement for good!

If you had really shiny tinfoil, maybe your house would look exactly like the one across the street, if it doesn't already?

What if everybody posted signs in the yard 'Fook Off Google' or 'Google is the tool of the Devil' before the picture was taken? Sure would create a lot of annoying extra work for google, wouldn't it?

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 12:00 pm

I think its cool, it shows the new windowboxes we put up on the house last year. and the lawn looked good. they when past our house around the 4th of july 07 (we had our decorations out) I'm just glad they took the pic. after the I had the crackheads on the first floor evited. the place looked a lot better by then.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:42 pm

I checked out my apartment building. There's a car coming out of the front gate. That gate is "Enter Only." I had a good laugh over that. I also checked out a place I lived in 15 years ago. The house is still there, but the shrubbery needs trimming.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

Nifty.

Of course they, like the post office, have my address wrong- I'm on the wrong side of the street according to the numbering plan. Laughing

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:57 pm

I think it's great Smile

I've just spent the afternoon travelling round Australia looking at all the places my OH used to live. It's probably the nearest I'm going to get, and it gives you a much better idea than just photos can.
It's mind boggling the processing and sheer number of 360 degree photos that go into it - it must cost a fortune.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2008 Posts: 1043

I wonder if they have hidden loads of adverts in the pics. Google does love to advertise in strange places.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 7:26 pm

I think its a cool form of virtual tourism. I've just been to Beverly Hills looking for the Clampetts, then over to NYC, where I wandered around the Bronx without getting mugged.

Finally I went to New Orleans, where they've clearly had a big tidy up since the satellite pictures were taken.

They haven't done my part of the world yet.

It does make you wonder how many rows it has started - What's her car doing outside our house?' etc...

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:40 pm

simpsonman3000 wrote:

^^^ SB, you went to Oakland? I live by Hayward!

Yes, I believe it was in 1988. What we had to do took a couple of hours then we were out of there. It was a little scary. No one approached us, but the stares and constant watching us was very uncomfortable.

Had Google Street View been available then, I would have refused to make the trip.

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 06 Feb 2008 Posts: 720

Yes I just done a virtual Pub crawl in south central LA without getting shot or having to speak Spanish Very Happy

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:53 pm

I have no problem with photos that were taken from the public street with a standard (non-zoom) lens. What is publicly visible can hardly be considered private... However, some of these photos & the associated zoom levels appear to go well beyond that. Frankly, I am not even sure that taking zoom photos of private property is LEGAL let alone when you put it on the internet in this fashion. That being said, all of the "artwork" around my house for a certain political campaign I was involved in this year has now been preserved by Mr. Google, which amuses me to no end Laughing

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:59 pm

Jimmy_Jones wrote:

There has been google cars spotted around the UK

can someone tell me what a google car looks like please

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 2628

The google car looks like an ordinary car with a barbeque on its roof.
To blend in it also has google written on the side

There was one parked near us for a while.

Not sure about all this street view stuff but my house can already be seem from google earth and on map.live .com you can even see my washing hanging out!

Lovely and white so it was, should be sponsored by a soap powder!

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 9:25 pm

I wonder if we can get a lad to photograph the streets in Lagos (house by house) in order to provide them to Google for street view?

New bait modality??????

B

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 2628

^ Thats a nice idea

heres what the cars look like around here

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 9:35 pm

It's kind of creepy but voyeuristically addictive. It's certainly another sign that privacy is slowly disappearing from modern society. But I'm not too worried -- yet. Like TSnerd's situation, if you try to find my house you'll be a block down the street on the other side. The address they give for my actual house doesn't exist on this street. When I went back to look at the house I grew up in, they placed hte address over a mile west of the real location. So for now it's a gimmick more than a tool, at least for finding a specific address.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:31 pm

I bet real estate agents hate this. Prospective buyers will be able to check out the neighbourhood and see the crack house right next door to the "spacious family home near school and shops" the agent wants to sell them.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:52 pm

I have the same situation as TSnerd and Juan. I can't see me standing out there waving. Laughing

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:11 pm

It really can be awesome.Using a few details that I remember,I found the house that I lived in as a child,some 43 years after I last saw it.A co-worker and I found a fondly remembered,er -entertainment club he remembered in New York City.The address it indicated was exactly one up from a large address we could read on the buiding next door,so at least in some areas it is accurate.

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:27 pm

When I typed in my address it when right to my house. smack dab right in front of it.

Google Street View - Cool Tool or Gross Invasion Of Privacy?	View next topic View previous topic