Saturday - April 04, 2009

A Debatable View

Microsoft has a similar thing online. You can do “bird’s eye view” and change the angle low enough to almost look into people’s windows.

Not to be outdone, Google’s online Map has Street View, which puts you right down on the ground and let’s you spin around and zoom in on things close enough to almost read a car’s license plates.

And now that a large part of the urban areas of the USA are mapped out, the Google camera crews are moving to Europe. As their add page puts it:

I moved from Amsterdam to London last year and even though I’ve enjoyed getting to know London, I can’t help feeling a bit homesick sometimes. Which is why I’m really excited that today we’re launching Street View for both the Netherlands and the United Kingdom; now I can take a trip down memory lane and explore my new home, even if it’s raining. Starting today you’ll be able to view 360º street level imagery for Amsterdam, London, Rotterdam, Manchester, Liverpool and several other cities in these countries—25 cities in all!

Now whenever I feel like going back to the Netherlands I can use Street View to admire the beautiful canals in Amsterdam:
...or visit my old university in Rotterdam:
...or even take a look at the bike I left behind:

... and they include the pictures to prove it.

Is this proper? Should this be done? Is it an invasion of your privacy? Well, this is all coming to the UK too, and some folks don’t like it.

Gang of villagers chase away Google car

Google’s ambitious plan to offer a 3-D street level view of communities across three continents hit a snag when angry residents of a UK village blocked the search engine’s camera car from photographing their homes.

Fearing the appearance of their well appointed properties on the Web site would attract criminals scouting for burglary targets, villagers in Broughton, north of London, summoned the police after spotting the car.

“I was upstairs when I spotted the camera car driving down the lane,” resident Paul Jacobs told The Times of London.

“My immediate reaction was anger: How dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime.

“This is an affluent area. We’ve already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it’s an invitation for more criminals to strike. I was determined to make a stand, so I called the police.”

A Google spokesman, quoted by the UK Press Association, said: “Embarking on new projects, we sometimes encounter unexpected challenges, and Street View has been no exception.

“We know that some people are uncomfortable with images of their houses or cars being included in the product, which is why we provide an easy way to request removal of imagery. Most imagery requests are processed within hours.”

The spokesman added: “We take privacy very seriously, and we were careful to ensure that all images in our Street View service abide by UK law.”

Yeah, sure they do. And it’s just so easy contacting ... a search engine. How the hell do you talk to a webpage? Oh sure, you can fill out a CGI form. And hope somebody reads it eventually.

But back to the story of “Pegman" in the UK… pull up the map ... move the pegman about, over to ... there. Hit zoom ...

Posted by Drew458     on 04/04/2009 at 12:20 AM   
Filed Under: • High Tech •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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