Google Street View: just do it?

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Tuesday, 12 August 2008

Page 1 of 2 ! As individuals fret over homes and private roads being seen on Google’s Street View, is Google taking privacy requests seriously? Google’s Street View is a fantastic example of a simple philosophy: don’t seek permission, seek forgiveness after the fact. After all, if you ask permission to do something, you might not get it. So, why not just do it anyway? Then, if people don’t like it, they can then ask for their homes or roads to be removed after the fact. That’s the way YouTube works. It’s the way Google’s search engine works. In a very basic sense it’s the way the DMCA works with its “take down” notices. It’s also the way “opt-out” systems work – everyone knows that “opt-in” systems have a much lower rate of success as few will generally opt-in, while in an opt-out system, few will opt-out of the massive database you have created. An interesting tid-bit about Google’s Street View comes into play when people ask Google to remove the front view of their homes from the system. I’ve noticed that Google has done exactly that, obliterating the front view of a friend’s home, when he only wanted the picture of his car to be removed, not necessarily the entire house. There isn’t anything particularly special about his car, he just feel comfortable with it there. The thing is – not only was the entire image of his home removed, if you turn around 180 degrees the entire “frame” has been removed. What if the person on the other side of the street wanted their home to be visible? What would Google do then? Put that side of the street in that frame back? If that’s the case, why remove the entire frame anyway, and just remove what people wanted removed? Or can’t Google do that without more fuss to itself, with frame removal simpler than removing specific items? If not, why not? The question becomes – why can’t Google just remove the parts people want removed, or fuzz them as it purports to do with faces and car numberplates? Of course if you move left or right, up and down the street, you can just turn the street view around – and his car and house are still fully visible! Is no-one thinking at Google, or reading what people want to have removed? Fuzzing or blacking out the specific images from whichever angle you want to have removed would have been better – unless, of course, he DID want his entire house to be blacked out. Continued on page 2. << First page <   1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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