p2pnet news view P2P | Advertising:- Canadian cities snooped by Google StreetView now include St John’s, Sherbrooke, London, Sudbury, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Nanaimo, Victoria, Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax, Vancouver, Squamish, Whistler, Ottawa Kitchener and Waterloo.

On one side of its corporate face, Google says it’s a ’service’. But on the other, it admits it’s a product.

You know whenever you see Google claiming one of its ’services’ is there to help people or “enhance their internet experience,” the ultimate beneficiary is Google. Only Google.

And what ’service’?

In March p2pnet revealed how Google got Beatle Paul McCartney’s street address wrong.

And, “When villagers in the quiet, ‘affluent’ village of Broughton in Cambridgeshire spotted a Google Street View car creeping into sight, they leaped into action and formed a human chain until the Google car slunk away with tailpipe between its tyres,” said the Daily Mail.

“The villagers complained Google had no right to take pictures of their homes, calling it an ‘invasion of privacy’ and an ‘invitation for burglars to strike’. But not only has the village brought national attention to itself, it has raised the ire of Internet users, who are now campaigning for Street View enthusiasts from across the UK to descend on the village to snap their own perfectly legal photographs.”

Not only burglars. Abortion clinics are targets. And as Google StreetView explorer Marc asked in p2pnet yesterday, “Is Google is the Facebook of pix that can come back to haunt you?”

Because although Google promises to remove images on request, “Sneak View victims can ask to have their pix removed only if they know they’ve been photographed,” we said.

Jonathan Lister, Google Canada’s managing director, told a House of Commons committee its auto-blur technology “automatically blurs faces and license plates that appear in its photos and if it ‘misses a face’ people could ‘file a complaint’.”

However, “so far, it appears to be extremely hit and miss, with an awful of of misses,” we pointed out, emphasising, “Certainly, the pix we have in our growing collection of non-blurs are a tiny tip of a huge iceberg.”

Removing compromising images ‘within 24 hours’

Multi-billion-dollar online advertising and file indexing company Google is a cult.

Founded by Larry Page (right) and Sergey Brin with Eric Schmidt (centre) as the pope, it has millions of followers and adherents worldwide, and almost 20,000 acolytes.

When Google speaks, governments listen and politicians pay attention to its holy writs.

“Google used to be a ‘good beats evil’ business,” says Umair Haque, director of the Havas Media Lab, in Harvard Business, going on, “It profited by doing good, and creating better sets of economics.”

But that was yesterday.

Today, “increasingly, Google is an ‘evil subsidizes good’ business,” says  Haque. “It’s not so different from Coke. The historic, globe-spanning bad stuff Coke does — selling toxic sugar-water to kids and the poor — subsidizes a threadbare patch of good stuff: a handful of spare change for charitable giving and public partnerships.

“Increasingly, the evil stuff Google does — supporting censorship, selling more and more toxic ads, squeezing suppliers and turning a blind eye — subsidizes a shrinking green patch of good stuff, like investing in the Mozilla Foundation.”

Supporting censorship?

p2pnet was the first to draw attention to Google’s decision to cherry pick news sources inside China.

“Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT) ceo Bill Xia told us a volunteer working with DIT’s DynaWeb noticed Google’s Chinese news returned different results depending whether the search was conducted in China or in the US,” we wrote, going on >>>

He also said, “We were able to confirm this report through proxies in China. Search results inside China do not contain news from blocked sites such as www.epochtimes.com.au.”

We spoke with Google spokeswoman Debbie Frost, who denied claims that its Chinese service was censoring news, saying, “to create the best possible news search experience for our users, we sometimes decide not to include some sites, for a variety of reasons”.

Its help page once declared, “Google does not censor results for any search term” and, “We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results.”

But it was changed to read, “It is Google’s policy not to censor search results. However, in response to local laws, regulations, or policies, we may do so. When we remove search results for these reasons, we display a notice on our search results pages. Please note: For some older removals (before March 2005), we may not show a notice at this time.”

Organising the world’s information

Google’s list of ‘products’ is truly staggering.

And nothing — nothing – Google does is removed from its primary purpose in life: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.

To Google.

Its Street Views is no exception.

Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android

Launched on May 25, 2007, Goggle StreetView, “has gradually expanded to include more cities, and in these cities more streets, and also some rural areas,” says Wikipedia.

Then, “On November 21, 2008, Street View was added to the Maps application installed on all of Apple iPhones. On December 10, 2008, Street View was added to the Maps application for S60 3rd Edition. Street view has now also been added to the Windows Mobile version of Google Maps. All versions of Google Maps for Android feature street view, and the digital compass can be used to look around the locations.”

Firms engaged in this kind of activity have to let citizens know that they’re going to be photographing the streets of their city, when this will happen, why and how they can have their image removed if they don’t want it in a database, said Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddardt.

Her office released Captured on Camera to help Canadians understand privacy issues surrounding street-level imaging applications such as Google StreetView, and a similar product offered by Canpages. (html, pdf).

It states >>>

A number of companies have begun collecting images of public places in Canada, which may then be made available over the Internet or through other means. Individuals may be captured in these images, perhaps incidentally.  One of the most widely known is Google’s Street View application, which allows computer users to make “virtual visits” to cities such as Paris, London, New York and, eventually, major Canadian centres. Canpages is another company that provides street images on the Internet.  Other applications have also been developed for fields such as geomatics, surveying, mapping and urban planning.

In Canada, there is private-sector privacy legislation that applies to these street-level imaging applications if they are collecting images of identifiable people. And, while the Privacy Commissioners of Canada, British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec recognize the popularity of these applications, they have also expressed reservations because the technology captures images not just of places, but of people as well.

The Commissioners believe Canadians should be aware of the privacy issues that can arise.

People in Public Places

A common misconception is that a company doesn’t need your permission to take your photograph in a public place.

In fact, one of your key protections under Canadian privacy law is that you should know when your picture is being taken for commercial reasons, and what your image will be used for.  Your consent is also needed¹. There are exceptions to this rule but they are very limited and specific².

However, with some of the new street-level imaging applications, you don’t always know if your image is being captured.  This is why we think companies that engage in this activity have to let citizens know that they are going to be photographing the streets of their city, when this will happen, why, and how they can have their image removed if they don’t want it in a database.  For example, this could include visible marking on the vehicles that are used to capture the information, and notification using a variety of media (press release, local media outlets, service web site) outlining dates and locations for filming, the purpose for filming and how people can contact them with questions.  Most people probably don’t expect their images to be captured by a company as they go about their business, but they may mind less if they have a choice to plan their day accordingly.

The Privacy Dimension and Your Image Online

Street-level imaging applications use various means of photographing the streetscape. Typically, a camera is mounted on a vehicle that is driven up and down the streets of selected cities. The images can then be viewed on the Internet.

Privacy Commissioners have had discussions with several companies to strengthen privacy protections for people whose images are captured. Our position is that all companies that offer such applications must take steps to better safeguard your privacy.

In addition to companies being proactive and creative in their public communications to ensure that Canadians know when their cities — and, therefore, they themselves — may be photographed, we think these companies need to be more privacy sensitive in the areas they choose.  They need to be mindful that people entering or leaving sensitive locations, such as shelters or abortion clinics, likely want to remain anonymous for privacy and safety reasons.

They should also use proven and effective blurring technologies for faces and vehicle licence plates, so that people cannot be identified when their images are posted. Where individuals may be identifiable, companies must offer fast and responsive mechanisms to allow the images to be blocked or taken down.

Companies offering these imaging applications must also have a good reason to keep the original, unblurred images in their databanks. If they do retain unblurred images, they must limit how long they keep them and protect them with appropriate security measures.

The Bottom Line

Street-level imaging technology may offer benefits, but these should not come at the cost of your privacy.

That is why we encourage technology companies to ensure that you continue to enjoy your right to privacy, even when you’re simply out in the park, walking your dog, or sunning yourself in your backyard.

Federal

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
www.priv.gc.ca

Provincial

Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta
www.oipc.ab.ca

Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia
www.oipc.bc.ca

Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec
www.cai.gouv.qc.ca

Stay tuned.

Jon Newton - p2pnet

Follow p2pnet on Twitter.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

street address wrong – Google misnumbers Paul McCartney`s house, March 28, 2009
Daily Mail – Watch out Broughton! Street View fans plan to descend on ‘privacy’ village for photo fest, April 3, 2009
p2pnet – Google Sneak Views: Part I, December 13, 2009
Harvard Business – How Vevo Makes Google More Like Coca-Cola, December 11, 2009
cherry pick news sources – Google on China censorship, October 1, 2004

ALSO SEE -

Google Steet View at Swiss abortion clinics

Does Google Street View racially profile people?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Advertising, P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

HOME

Viewed 11460 times