Feb 21 2008
Google Street View, You Scare Me
I’m all for good maps, but Google Street View scares me. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s the process where Google has cars drive down every street in an area, taking 360 degree photos.
I looked up my parents house in Chicago and can see my sister’s car in the driveway. Same for my brothers, in Evergreen park. Look there! My childhood home is for sale! From what I can tell, pretty much all of Chicago is now photographed.
Now I can see some use for it, maybe when trying to find a location, but this feels really creepy to me. It seems like an ideal Big Brother combined with Criminal Element tool. Sure, in theory, anyone can drive by and “case” a location. But now you don’t even have to drive by (and potentially cause suspicion).
I realize it’s not real-time or anything, but how much longer until Google launches their Google Earth Spy Satellite network? “Do no harm” my ass.
4 Responses to “Google Street View, You Scare Me”
I looked up the front of my office building and there was one of the attorneys with a coworker of mine standing outside. I showed her and her response was “well I’ll be damned!”
The must have just updated the streetview of our house, because when I looked at it a few weeks ago I didn’t see my car…
Evelyn and I are working on a project for homeowners who dislike these street views and want to send a rude message to Google. More to come once we’ve got a working prototype.
Yeah, I find it an invasion of privacy and ultra-creepy, especially now as a dad. What kind of criminal background checks does Google conduct on these creeps out with their cameras? I am waiting for the first pedophile to get arrested coming from these Google spy-cam ranks.
Part of the problem is that these cameras are picking up photos of kids/families. There was a big hoo-haa recently when a mother found that her children (in bathing suits) showed up.
I think it’s one thing to take photos of a house because it looks cool. It’s a whole other thing to map everything in an area (for commercial purposes, too).
The address search is off because of GPS, would be my guess. The mapping software is more accurate than the GPS in the camera car.
My gut feeling remains: this is turning into an excellent tool for the remote “casing” of an area. If I were a burglar, I’d be scoping out houses in the privacy of my own home, and then take a drive-by for an up-to-date look.
Imagine a google search: “home barrington bushes blocking view vacation”. Tie in someones Google Calendar (showing that they are out of town) along with a photo of their home (with bushes blocking one side) and you’re all set. It’s a good thing most criminals are stupid.