Posted on 04/04/2009 7:39:19 AM PDT by JoeProBono
One of my recent tech tricks is to give the uninitiated a look at their home on Google Street View, the photos the search company posts on its mapping site. People are inevitably startled, and the word "creepy" comes up a lot.
It's even worse in other countries that apparently have a tighter definition of privacy. Canadian officials fear the practice may violate its laws, and the British are even tougher. What's described as an angry mob arose in an English village and forced a Google photo-snapping car to leave.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
Just for the hell of it, I zoomed into my old house and saw the new owner or whoever sitting on the front steps drinking a beer!
Does anyone have addresses on our great leaders such as Pelosi and Barbs boxer? Lets see how these socialists of the people live and how many immigrants are walking in their neihborhoods.
It can be a valuable tool with some legitimate uses. I frequently provide banks with drive-by valuation reports, and sometimes cannot see into a back yard to note amenities (deck, pool, shed, etc.). I can also zoom out to see proximity to highways, commercial uses, etc.
As far as just snooping, nope; don’t have time for that.
We saw my bro-in-law watering his lawn.
Whoever ‘volunteers’(?) for Google, or however it works, to take these close-up photos can play all sorts of games if they wanted to.
Funny that the English villagers would react this way, given that the Brits tolerate more video surveillance by their government than just about any other country on earth.
I don’t support satellite imagery where you could see into someone’s back yard, but why are people doing something in a location visible from public property at ground level if they don’t want it seen? I grant that there is a difference between the risk of an occasional passer-by seeing something and the thing being saved in perpetuity for billions worldwide to see. However where I live at least, Google just does the commercial roads and the collector streets in between neighborhoods and doesn’t go into the residential neighborhoods themselves. That seems reasonable and useful, actually.
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