Google Street View Privacy Concerns Commence

By Doug Caverly - Thu, 05/31/2007 - 5:11pm.

Google saw someone’s cat - and so it begins. Earlier this week, the search engine giant released Street View, a Google Maps feature that allows users to see things from the perspective of a person driving down a public road. Now privacy concerns are beginning to mount.

These concerns have, as Robert Scoble points out, no legal basis whatsoever: “In the United States, if you can see something from a public street you are allowed to take pictures of it,” he states.

Yet you can’t say that Street View isn’t (in addition to being very cool) just the tiniest bit creepy. After all, while walking around your house in your bathrobe, you expect to, at worst, make yourself visible to a neighbor or a deliveryman - not everyone with access to the Internet.

In the case that started this soon-to-be uproar, it was fortunately a cat, not a person, who was too near an open window. Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin links to the picture, then writes, “Dang, it’s so detailed, I can even see he’s a tabby!”

Now, as mentioned earlier, Robert Scoble is weighing in. CNET’s Daniel Terdiman is creating a Street View photo album of sorts. And mydigimedia’s Amy Webb is reporting a rumor “that very soon, there will be a video option with either live shots or feeds from YouTube.” Yikes.

So, Street View: yea or nay? Google’s doing nothing illegal, but if you don’t like it, the company may just listen up and install some sort of privacy option or feature.

News Tags: Google, scoble, Street View, Privacy

About the author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.

Comments

Submitted by rick (WPN reader) on Sun, 06/10/2007 - 8:55am.

Google is so 20th century.....here is the real 21st century.

3 years from now.....
Everyone will be walking down the street with their miniature, Bluetooth camera lens embedded in their clothing (front and rear), which streams everything it/you see to your WiFi cell phone.
Your WiFi cell phone will store everything on its 1 terabyte hard drive while at the same time streaming this video you see via WiFi to a “tracker network”. The tracker network is a social group of similar people ( by geographical area,interest..etc),numbering from 2 or 3 to tens of thousands in size. All of these tracker networks will include retail facial recognition software that will be 10 times more powerful than anything currently available.
The TrackerNetwork facial software works by taking every face that is inputted into its database and giving it a unique number.
Then the face is identified in two ways.
1. The TrackerNetwork facial software has so many thousands of “hits” on any face over a period of day/weeks it identifies where this person starts his/her day, works, shops etc. It does this all automatically without knowing who the person is.
2. People who belong to the TrackerNetwork input faces and identify them by name.

With the above two, anyone belonging to the TrackerNetwork can track just about anyone by belonging to a network from that city. Just input the name ( or unique ID the TrackerNetwork software assigns to an individual) and the software will either allow you to watch them live or can show you history from as far back as recorded on that individual.

The upside:
Modern Neighbor Hood Watch: Hit and run? captured on numerous cell phones, instantly uploaded to a tracker network and within seconds the car and driver are identified and sent to the police.

You are walking down the street, a drug addict asks you for money and when you refuse, he starts to get violent. Picked up by someone watching from a store, driving by in a car and from the person waiting for the bus ½ a block away. Instantly sent to a tracker network.

The downside:
Anyone can track anyone all the time! You can track: politicians, celebrities, neighbors, spouse......etc.

Submitted by Poetslife (WPN reader) on Tue, 06/05/2007 - 5:49am.

Jihad and Street View

Sadly, the jihadi's have already used Google Earth to map JFK Airport to help their plan to kill thousands there. They were infiltrated and stopped.

With Street View, they have have just been handed an even more superior satellie technology to carry out their killing plans.

This technology was once only available to legitimate military forces under command and responsible to nation states. Now, any mullah with an itch to bomb and kill Americans can recruit one of millions of willing kids from a madrasas in Pakistan or any of the thousands of mosques in this country to kill and maim American citizens.

On their websites (see www.jihad.unspun) they state clearly that this is their goal.

Although they failed at JFK, they will try again and again, using Street View technology, and succeed. I have to wonder if Google realizes this use and figures the benefits outweigh the cost of dead Americans.

Submitted by Fred (WPN reader) on Fri, 06/01/2007 - 11:38am.