Google Street View: good or bad?
p2pnet news view | Advertising:-Yesterday we reported Google Street View photographers will soon be snooping around in Canada, busily snapping streets, and the houses on them, in major metropolitan areas.
It’s done without the permission of people who own the houses and who walk and drive the streets.
Is that good or bad? Is it just another unwanted advertising intrusion from Google? Or a valuable public service?
Says a Reader’s Write »»»
Google’s Streetview isn’t some kind of real-time surveillance, it’s a series of still images that don’t show anything that can’t be seen by anyone driving down that same street. I’ve used it several times to get an idea of what an area looks like before actually going there.
How many times have you tried to find a particular destination and ended up driving back and forth, trying to figure out why the numbers jump from 204 to 298? Wouldn’t it be nice to explore the area virtually first?
They have pictures of my house online. So what? There are people driving up and down the street every day, should I go out and demand that they not look at my house as they drive past?
Says Just my two cents »»»
I know that this kind of opinion is not popular with the people watching out for the black helicopters, and the people who feel that the government is listening in on every conversation that is made on either the internet or the phone, but I seriously have to agree with the RW above.
I have found street view to be invaluable to checkout the neighborhood of a house that I am considering to rent/buy, and I would rather do my initial checks virtualy, and online, instead of driving by the area on the weekends or at night, after work.
I have also found street view very handy in showing people who come from overseas, where a particular store or site is in Tokyo (may it be the Tokyo Tower, or a low price Hard disk store in Akihabara-the electronics district). When I went to Paris last year for the first time, I tried to use street view (Paris’ street view is limited to the route used for some bicycle race I hear) to get a feel of where I would be.
And as an American living in Japan, I really appreciate the ability to see the house where my grandparents lived, as well as the houses where my parents, brother’s family and sister’s family live- and show it to my children who have not been able to travel to these locations yet.
While I greatly understand the need for privacy, I also feel that this sort of service is very important. Could you imagine how difficult life would be, if people were trying to block maps from being created or printed, because it showed where their house is.
I guess what they need, is a method of automatically erasing all of the people and insides of doors/windows, but then again – that would just be creepy.
Stay tuned.
without the permission – Google SnoopMobiles in Canada, April 7, 2009
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April 8th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
“Iâve used it several times to get an idea of what an area looks like before actually going there.”
“Could you imagine how difficult life would be, if people were trying to block maps from being created or printed, because it showed where their house is?”
These captions illustrate a common response to the big question.
But these types of responses illustrate a failure to understand the actual concern.
The question isn’t about the aerial views that comprise Google Earth and Google Maps.
It’s not even about street level snapping of things everyone sees from public streets.
It would be completely insane to accept normal live viewing of something accessible while denying the same view in a photograph, or even video capture.
Just because someone might feel the need to examine Street View doesn’t mean they want to ban the very creation and printing of maps. That’s just being obtuse.
The issue is about the depth and range Google feels is necessary to carry out the Google Street View program, and whether they are carrying the whole thing just a little too far. There would seem to have been a number of examples where they drive down marked private roads, snapping views of houses that some detectives or reporters would get arrested for capturing, as the “views” could be considered as “invasive”.
Such pictures should really only be done with informed consent of the subjects.
And, all the images (before and after “editing”) end up on Google’s servers, without anyone’s permission.
Google is not the government, or a documentary group.
Nor are they a licensed, contracted spy organization.
Google is a corporation, a business. A business that has openly demonstrated it wants to know everything about you so it can “target” you. Should such a business be given so much latitude that we don’t question their use of cameras in our neighbourhoods?
Indeed, we all know what happens when you let a corporation run freely for a while.
They begin to assume certain “other liberties” for themselves that result in us fighting tooth and nail to take away from them.
I use Google all the time to get a visual “heads-up” on places I’m thinking of going to, and I find the aerials are more than good enough for that purpose. And, using the aerials also allows you to “travel” along a proposed route, with a pretty good magnification factor in place. I don’t need an actual “street view” for that.
Street View is really just a novelty.
It certainly doesn’t merit “automatic acceptance” at this stage of the game.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
>DA
“The issue is about the depth and range Google feels is necessary to carry out the Google Street View program, and whether they are carrying the whole thing just a little too far. There would seem to have been a number of examples where they drive down marked private roads, snapping views of houses that some detectives or reporters would get arrested for capturing, as the âviewsâ could be considered as âinvasiveâ.
This, I agree, is a problem that must be cleared, yet at the same time, I think that there is still a knee-jerk response to technology like this. For example, a group of people in an area within Tokyo, are trying to block Google from posting the street-view data of an area that even include very public spaces (like train stations, office buildings, parks, etc…), and as beautiful as Paris is – with its cathedrals, monuments, and Eiffel Tower- most of it can not be seen on street view.
As for the opinion
“Google is a corporation, a business. A business that has openly demonstrated it wants to know everything about you so it can âtargetâ you. Should such a business be given so much latitude that we donât question their use of cameras in our neighbourhoods?”
While I do understand the mistrust for a company as big as Google, and do not like the idea of companies getting too invasive, I am left with one question:
If not a private company, then who would take the time and money to do such an international project?
Each country’s government?
That would really get the conspiracy theorist going.
Then a non-profit organization?
Yeah right.
In Japan, there was a major uproar against automotive GPS navigation systems, where people complained that the Guidance systems were causing drivers to drive through residence areas to take a short cut. Of course this had been happening before GPS navigation systems, due to “Short-cut” maps that had been sold on the shelf for over 10 years before this was even brought up.
This whole problem lead to police to require all GPS navigation systems to NOT navigate through streets under a certain level. Newer GPS navigation systems now navigate though major roads, only to force you to take a major detour to reach a house in a residential area (which if you are trying to go to a friend’s house for the first time, is very embarrassing).
All I am saying, is let’s not limit a technology because it “might” become a problem, but suggest ways in which problems get be negated, or easily rectified if arise.
For example, moving objects can be removed from the photo, by taking two photos of the same area at slightly different times, and removing the difference (Gee, I should patent that idea!).
Automatic acceptance is not needed, but on the same note, neither is automatic denial.
>Jon, you considering to come to Japan in the future? If so I will be glad to send you links to streetviews of interesting places across Tokyo
Just my two cents
April 10th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Google Street View camera-car that may be taking photos of city streets has been sighted around town on several occasions over the past few days. There have been several reports of sightings of a blue Cobalt (or perhaps there’s a few) with a Google sticker and a camera mounted on its roof in all parts of the city. Martiniboys.com caught a few sightings of the Google camera-car this weekend. This is what they posted this morning – http://www.martiniboys.com/Toronto/articles/Spotted:-Google-Spy-Car-Hitting-up-Toronto-Streets-12290.html