Dear Google Street View …
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:-“I’m not thrilled about this,” says MN.
“I was following what happened to Mr. Jon Newton here on his blog here http://www.p2pnet.net/story/23336 and here http://www.p2pnet.net/story/23469.
“I don’t even know where Google is advertising where and when they are filming. It’s not in my local paper.”
You’ll find the three sentences on the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s blog. They refer to myGoogle SnoopMobile invades p2pnet turf posts in which I »»»
- Complain about the fact a GooMobile cruised the street where I live on Vancouver Island, taking pictures of my house, and other peoples’ houses, without our knowledge or permission; and,
- Respond to Google’s complaint about my complaint.
“I seriously don’t want the following filmed by this commercial foreign entity,” says MN, continuing »»»
- My kids who play in the front yard with the twins next door
- My home and address
- The hardware attached to my home (AC, central, Satellite dish (if any), The Bell phone line I detached from my home.
- My cars and my cars license plates
- The condition of my grass
- The condition of any cracked window on my home
- What Plants I keep in my garden
- What type of tree I planted
- My choice of watering the lawn when I’m not allowed to (if they capture this)
- My choice to keep all the above (especially the kids and license plate) off a foreign companies foreign data base which the Privacy Commissioner has no powers to audit or do anything about in a foreign country.
- The profiling of everything to do with my house and property.
- I don’t agree with the privacy commissioner that Blurring is good enough when an unblurred master sits on foreign soil when my Privacy Commissioner has no powers to have them removed on my request.
I can go on, trust me.
I don’t like it at all, and I DEMAND the choice to optin (which I would not optin), yet google is opting all of us in by default.
I do not accept this.
Since I can’t find where google states the area’s they have done already and/or plan to do, I want to optout (though I think I should have to optin for the foreign commercial entity).
If they pass on my street I want to see something physical (ie. a white hood over the camera) proving they are not taking the film/picture of my privacy and what they can profile.
If I find out they have indeed already passed on my street, the above will be formally submitted (and I will ask my neighbors for their input as well).
I take issue with it all.
The privacy Commissioner should require Google to have an optin, in my belief, and not some obscure website that no one is aware of and that I can’t find.
In the URLS posted above, Google said, “its not commercial, its free”.
Again, I take extreme exception to this by this foreign commercial company who is profile people homes and neighborhoods.
Profiling my home and whom they capture outside is equal to profiling me and my choices.
I respectfully request that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada put an immediate halt to this. Require Google to notify people, and provide them with an OPTIN as opposed to an assumed optin.
An assumed optin is to late. Its out of Canada and on foreign soil.
With respect and regards, M.N.
Stay tuned.
Cheers! Jon Newton - p2pnet
June, 2009
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June 18th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Seriously?? Better put up walled up blackout curtains from the sidewalk back on your house then, as anyone who wants to take a drive by can see exactly what google street view is going to show you.. What is with the paranoia from everyone. Think of it as a handy tool to use for people trying to find their way from one place to another. Or for people looking into buying a home in the neighbourhood it will give them a nice idea of what the area looks like (home styles, maturity of trees, general upkeep of yards, etc..). They are not putting a 24×7 video camera outside of your house to spy on you, its going to be a one time snap in time. Have you even looked at google street view in the states right now and how its been implemented?
June 18th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
” Better put up walled up blackout curtains from the sidewalk back on your house then, as anyone who wants to take a drive by can see exactly what google street view is going to show you. ”
i am fully prepared and have tinfoil hat on so they cant scan my brainwavs ans send my secrit thouts to the geovernment.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Sometimes I regret I can’t see who’s posting. It’d be interesting to know who’s a shill and who isn’t.
Cheers!
June 18th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
No shill here, but I do see , in my OPINION, what appears to be a little paranoia.
Just a little.
Keep in mind before you flame me ( and I know i’ll get flamed, and who’ll do it too ), that even
though I don’t have a problem with it myself, everyone should be able to choose to participate
BEFORE the pictures are taken. I am WITH you on that.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
The 2 RW’s above can OPT-IN if they like it.
Easy as that.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
It’s not a matter of paranoia. As stated above, people can opt-in, if they want it and like it.
I don’t like it, I don’t want it, and I certainly didn’t opt-in for it.
Maybe my kids won’t like it when they are a little older, or maybe they will. Till they are old enough to make their own decision I’ll make the decsions for my kids. NOT google.
I don’t want to be forced opted-in. I don’t want my kids forced opted in. Should people not have a choice?
According to google, no. No choice in the matter, and the privacy commissioner appears to be backing that up.
And to top it off, they publicly state they will delete originals when and how they feel like it.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
” The 2 RW’s above can OPT-IN if they like it.
Easy as that. ”
That’s the point and the problem, they’re not given the choice to opt-in, they are
already in, like it or not. They have to ‘opt-out’ .
That’s where I have a problem with this. It’s far too common for large Corps to
assume we want in, put us there, and make us opt-out after the fact.
That is bullshit.
People need to be asked BEFORE shit is done.
Otherwise, regardles of what the motive really is, it is going to be perceived as sneaky
and dishonest, and in Googles case, it probably is.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
“It’s not a matter of paranoia. As stated above, people can opt-in, if they want it and like it.
I don’t like it, I don’t want it, and I certainly didn’t opt-in for it.”
Yes, let’s all opt-out and make Street View useless. In fact, let’s outlaw photography completely. A while back there was a large fire in my town and as my friend and I drove by, the local news vans were covering the aftermath. They may have accidentally filmed the car as we drove by and then aired it on TV witout permission! I demand that all news programs stop filming reports as they may inadvertantly catch a glimpse of me! Recently, my neighbors sold their house. I’m pretty sure that when they put it up for sale, they placed pictures in loac lreal estate publications. My house probably shows up in the edge of some of the photos. Nobody ever asked me if this was ok, but yet a portion of my house has probably been published in different publications without my consent! I need to call my lawyer and sue them for all the emotional distress that they’ve caused me!!! In fact, I’m going to sue the store that sold them the camera and film for helping them to commit this incredible invasion of my privacy!
I say we ban all cameras, camcorders, camera phones. I guess paper and pencil are ok, but the first time I catch someone out in the street sketching my house, they’re going on the list too!
How dare people think they can drive down public streets and take photos without getting the consent of the people who live there, the people driving by, the people walking by, the town, the state, etc.!
June 18th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
eye roll
June 19th, 2009 at 12:35 am
Wow, Enough already. Is this p2pnet or paranoia international?
June 19th, 2009 at 1:37 am
There is nothing paranoia about it.
Its a simple opt-in, which google doesn’t want to give people for their own greedy agenda.
The only ones who are touting its paranoia or you have something to hide or wear a tinfoil hat are those poeple who are in the US and have no rights to privacy via your own laws, or people who don’t understand the implications of profiling for commercial use.
As the Privacy Commissioner stated her self:
You have to fight to keep what little privacy you have. Once its gone and accepted there is no getting it back.
I’ll fight for what I want.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:39 am
Since there is nothing wrong in your opinion, and if you are Canadian, post a comment on the PrivCom blog and state what you think.
Otherwise you are just a trolling shill.
Put your words there. Dare you.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:58 am
“Wow, Enough already. Is this p2pnet or paranoia international?”
1) Why is this kind of argument always between those who “don’t see a problem” and those who are thought of as “paranoid”?? Just because you don’t see a problem, doesn’t mean there isn’t one! If all you can say is, “everyone is paranoid”, then all I will say to you is STFU! Otherwise, you might try pointing out why you think Street View is such a good thing – what does it do for us, really?
2) I can’t understand what problem anyone would have with an OPT-IN philosophy in the first place. Only those that want to be part of it would be part of it – everyone (except for Google, I imagine) could be happy with that. Why does something like this have to be “all or nothing”?
3) For those who are too clueless to see the problem with a COMPANY, arbitrarily snapping pictures of EVERYTHING IN SIGHT, to further an ADVERTISING MISSION, with a virtually VALUELESS feature, I’d say this… Are you so simple-minded as to become blindly fascinated enough with something trivial, as Street View really is, that you would both condone the way it has been launched and attack those that aren’t ready to accept it this way??
June 19th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
“1) Why is this kind of argument always between those who “don’t see a problem” and those who are thought of as “paranoid”?? Just because you don’t see a problem, doesn’t mean there isn’t one! If all you can say is, “everyone is paranoid”, then all I will say to you is STFU! Otherwise, you might try pointing out why you think Street View is such a good thing – what does it do for us, really?”
I used it a while back to find a business that my friend wanted to visit. Online maps often leave something to be desired in that they don’t always place the marker at the actual location. In this case, the simple street map showed the location as being on the other side of the road. Street View allowed me to actually see the business.
In another instance I used it to find my way to a friend’s home. I’d never been there before, so I used Street View to scout the area and easily find their house.
Yes, in both cases, I probably could have found the store/house without the aid of Street View, but it made things easier. And if you’re going to argue that just “making things easier” isn’t a valid reason to have something like Street View, then please be prepared to explain why we have ANY modern conveniences when the Amish seem to manage quite nicely without them.
“2) I can’t understand what problem anyone would have with an OPT-IN philosophy in the first place. Only those that want to be part of it would be part of it – everyone (except for Google, I imagine) could be happy with that. Why does something like this have to be “all or nothing”?”
Because making Street View opt-in would essentially destroy it. Have you actually thought this through?
Instead of simply driving down streets, they would have to stop and knock on each person’s door, explain to them what they’re doing and get their permission. Besides the time that would take, what happens when all the paranoid people say no? How do they ensure that person’s house doesn’t appear in the images? Do they blur the house? Do they simply black out the entire area that the house occupies? What if the person isn’t home? Do they leave a note on the door? If so, how do they handle the people who respond? Not everyone has a computer, so they’d have to set up phone lines in order to let people call in. Between the people who would refuse permission and the people who would simply disregard the notice asking them to opt-in, Street View would have more holes in it than an entire deli full of Swiss cheese. It would be useless.
So basically, it has to be “all or nothing” because the logistics and economics of asking each and every person in the country for permission to place a photo of their home on the net would make it impossible. In effect, what you want is to kill Street View.
“3) For those who are too clueless to see the problem with a COMPANY, arbitrarily snapping pictures of EVERYTHING IN SIGHT, to further an ADVERTISING MISSION, with a virtually VALUELESS feature, I’d say this… Are you so simple-minded as to become blindly fascinated enough with something trivial, as Street View really is, that you would both condone the way it has been launched and attack those that aren’t ready to accept it this way??”
I’d like to ask you; Why is it that people only consider something worthwhile when THEY have a use for it?
So basically, all the talk about privacy concerns is just a smokescreen to cover up the fact that you don’t like Google and therefore everything they do is Evil. There are a lot of things I don’t like about Google, like what they did to “Google Groups”, but I tend to chalk it up to a clueless company, rather than an evil one. No, they’re not perfect and some people may have a legitimate reason to dislike them, but does that mean you have to actively try and destroy something that may be of value to others?
By the way, in case anyone wants to accuse me of not practicing what I preach, here’s a Street View photo of my house and dilapidated garage;
http://i44.tinypic.com/ezh5rl.jpg
June 20th, 2009 at 1:26 am
If you have a problem with street view, then put up a large wall in front of your house so nobody can see it. I don’t see what’s different between street view and just walking or driving down your street. Do you complain when someone walking or driving looks at your house?
June 20th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Saturn09,
List the differences between the two.
Once done, let me know.
June 21st, 2009 at 5:51 pm
People really blow the street view thing out of proportion. Stalkers aren’t going to sit on Google Earth all day looking for kids to rape. If people looking at your house bothers you so much, as someone said above, put a giant black curtain around it.
June 21st, 2009 at 10:01 pm
@RW above,
I must have missed it. What was your reasoning for or against mass marketing, advertising and privacy invasion of peoples homes again?
It wasn’t very clear.