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Google Australia street view =>Drawing criticism ?  (View post)

/pd [PersonRank 10]

Friday, April 11, 2008
16 years ago5,952 views

"Google Australia is expected within months to launch an application that will publish highly detailed, street-level photos of much of Australia, in a move that has drawn strong criticism from privacy advocates."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23526150-7582,00.html

Above 1 comments were made in the forum before this was blogged,

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

http://valleywag.com/378126/marissa-mayer-blames-pesky-humans-for-street-view-privacy-problems :
"Google prepares to release it's creepy-but-useful technology down under. But don't worry, they're working on an alogrithm to fix the problem — and if it's anything like the algorithms used to detect copyright infringement on YouTube, we'll be living in the Matrix before it's done."

(-:

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[Thanks Tom I added an update!]

callum [PersonRank 2]

16 years ago #

http://maps.google.com/cbk?output=xml&ll=-33.867529,151.207087

This is an example URL of the Web service that is used to get the panorama information in Street View. The lat/long in this case is for the middle of Sydney – when that returns something interesting, Street View Australia will be close behind.

Mysterius [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I think there is a difference between taking pictures of publicly available sights and singling out private employees for harassment, which is what the newspaper is doing.

Colin Colehour [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

The Google Australia team should stand outside their office building while the Streetview car drives by. That's just what other people are doing when the car goes through other cities/countries. If you are out in public there shouldn't be an outrage over your picture being online.

Andy Wong [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Watch out! Google's street view cars many be around, when you are doing some secret things on the street, say, with your secret lover.

Google might blur faces and car palette, and your privacy is under the mercy of such technology.

Colin, when you are out in public, this does not mean you will lost your privacy, because people in the street do not know you but people viewing photo online may know you and you don't want them to know.

Yes, an individual photographer might take you photos and put them online, and there's nothing you can do about it. However, as Google is doing this in a systematic way, this make Google become a big target.

Prosecuting an individual photographer for privacy issue may gain not much, but prosecuting a big company may be profitable.

While Google must have consulted its legal team before launching the service/operation, however, people around the world still have chance to resist.

Colin Colehour [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Just because your face is online, doesn't mean Google is making it easier to find say photos of John Doe in StreetView. Your face or license plate isn't searchable. People are just browsing with StreetView. Plus if you find yourself photographed by the service, you can always request those pictures to be removed.

Martin Porcheron [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

<<Watch out! Google's street view cars many be around, when you are doing some secret things on the street, say, with your secret lover.>>
As far as I'm concerned, a street is a _public_ road, as in, open and not secret.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

> Your face or license plate isn't searchable.

Not yet, anyways ;)

> Yes, an individual photographer might take you photos and put
> them online, and there's nothing you can do about it.

It depends where you live – in Germany, doing such is not allowed for the photographer (perhaps there are some exceptions to the rule, e.g. for "persons of public interest", but if you are the center of the photo, the photographer must get your permission to publish this, or else you have a right to privacy – yes, even when you were in a public place).

jf [PersonRank 5]

16 years ago #

its a pity they are getting tied up in legal stuff in Europe...
the tourism and real-estate benefits for a European streetview would be immense.

Peter Murphy [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Wow, this is one trash story. The part you left out goes on to reveal all the public records of Google Australia execs they could get their hands on. Nice.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Peter, I believe that article reveals so much precisely to criticize Google's privacy stance and to show how easy it is to get information using search and public documents...

Jack McIntyre [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I hope it all goes smoothly. I smilled and waved when I saw the Google-car. I want to see me!

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Idea for a startup: sell ads on Google Street View. The methodology: hire a couple of people on rollerblades who will follow the Google Street View cars, holding up cardboard ads.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

The Street View cars should follow you in order to catch the ads.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

You "just" need to catch the car side-by-side a couple of times, e.g. when it slows down due to a crossing, slow traffic, a red light. You would need to apply some intelligence like monitoring the Google car fleet, keeping tracks of routes they might have taken already, using several people on rollerblades hanging around different close vicinities of the potential route and so on. You could even hire someone on a byclicle with a visible poster, trying to "catch" their cars, driving in front of the car, behind it and so on.

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