Back in June ‘08, we told you about some planet-mapping shenanigans at Google. Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are buddies with Sir Richard Branson, whose home on his own private island seems to be covered by clouds 24/7. According to Google Earth, anyway:
(And if you think this is only because they don’t update the image very often, consider that Branson actually tried to use Google Earth’s satellite images over a period of several days to find the downed aircraft of his friend, the late Steve Fosset. How would that work unless the images were updated at least once every few days?)
So if you don’t like Google invading your privacy, all you need to do is become a world-famous billionaire with your own island.
Google was at the centre of new controversy last night after pictures of Tony Blair’s London home were mysteriously removed from its Street View web service…
Anyone typing Mr Blair’s address into the website, which allows people to see 360-degree pictures of streets, including close-ups of houses and buildings, is met with the message: ‘This image is no longer available.’
I wonder if Larry Page and Tony Blair knew each other before they both expanded their carbon footprints by flying out to Branson’s island for that Rich Jerks Global Warming Symposium? It pays to have friends in high places. Don’t it, Tony?
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I wonder if they will block out George W.’s new address from public viewing.
How convenient.
I have to admit, I’ve used Google Earth and it has its charm, but it seems that every day, someone “important” is getting wiped out or cloud covered or sensitive military locations are being exposed to the world. Something tells me that it may not be a great idea.
And then there are the poor sods like us. How screwed up would it be if some poor woman ran out on an abusive partner, and he found a way to verify her new address through Google Earth ala, “Oh, so and so at the pub said she moved to the north side of Chicago near Blahblah Street…whaddaya know, there’s a picture of her custom painted car parked outside that house I just zoomed in on.” I mean, it’s unlikely, but it could happen. But yeah, the privacy of the little people means nothing.
I agree Chronic.
Back around Christmas time, we thought we’d be moving to a new state, so I started looking at real estate in that area. I’d cross reference the home listing with Googlemaps and it really helped to narrow down what areas to look at.
One house I fell in love with, we could see all four sides on Google Streetview (up a side street, across the front, down a side alley, and the back was well covered by the two side shots). I thought it was soooooo cool, especially combined with the sales agent’s 32 picture virtual tour with 360 pan views of the interior. I didn’t have to drive 6 hours and hire an agent! Home shopping with my mouse!!!
Until I realized that the house on my computer screen could be mine to live in. My house on the internet, from 3 sides, plus the interior layout, views of all door locks… crap! You could see exactly which windows were the best targets for illicit entry, which bit of woods to cut through, where to park the vehicle…
Google’s gonna get their ass sued when some criminal admits to using Streetview to plan the murder.
This is kind of old news, being a geek I heard about this over a year ago. Google is more likely to hide Gore’s house and put a big bulls eye on Bush’s. If I am not mistaken either Sergey Brin or Larry Page was up for technology advisor in Obama’s administration.
Remember what I said about a woman being found by an abusive ex was unlikely?
From BBC:
“Since Street View launched in the UK on 19 March, PI has been contacted by many people identifiable via the service.
Among them were a woman who had moved house to escape a violent partner but who was recognisable outside her new home on Street View.
Also complaining were two colleagues pictured in an apparently compromising position who suffered embarrassment when the image was circulated at their workplace.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7959362.stm
It is scary to think that anyone can pull up my house and see my cars sitting in the driveway, with my license plates in plane view. With my husband doing what he does, this scares me more that anyone can see where we live. The only good news is if you punch in the correct address, it actually shows us being further down the street and to really see our house, you have to punch in a non-existing number.
Gaaaahhhh. I found our house, complete w/a shot of my car in the driveway, on Street View–although, as AAW says, the house number is off by a considerable margin. It’s still creepy. My kids’ jungle gym was clearly identifiable, as were other details. IIRC, my license plate was blurred out, but still, it was ooky.
Jeez, paranoid much guys?? lol
Come on, put on your best pirate costume, dres your dog as a huge pink possum and wrap tin foil around the trees, make yourself unique for Google.
Living in the middle of nowhere has its advantages. Google won’t even let me zoom in remotely half of the way. (But MSN LiveEarth lets me make out my driveway! Google Suckers!) However, almost every single street in Columbus has a street view, so I could look at my old house, the house my mom grew up in . . . then I looked up my grandfather’s house and looked at his neighbor mowing the grass outside. Freaky!
Aleric, that made my day. I’m off to dress up the kids like Teletubbies, and hubby will find a French maid’s uniform waiting for him to don when he gets home. Me, I’ma be Dr. McNinja.
Same here Habanada. You can get a terrain map of my town but no satellite shots yet.
And Beige is right, ArmyWife. They blur out license plates and house address numbers which are readable from the curb. I’ve also noticed that school and church signs are blurred, but it’s fairly obvious that if there are 6 school busses parked behind a large building with a playground, it’s a school… duh.
And for D, you’re right. I heard about the Branson clouds last year too. It’s making news again because of several oops moments with Streetview. About a month ago, someone found that a Streetview van had hit a fawn in upstate NY. The camera captured the hit and then the half dead corpse as it kept rolling along.
Then came an uproar in London last week when Streetview cameras caught a businessman exiting a porn shop who then filed a complaint. Then another Brit found that Streetview had captured shots of naked toddlers in a public park. Apparently they picnic differently across the pond.
Now it’s a game for people to search Streetview for other objectionable moments.
No one’s let me in on the naked picnics! I wouldn’t want to go to one where the kids are naked though. That’s icky.
Don’t care that they blur out the number. The fact that you can clearly see everything else is disturbing. Right down to the Harley in our garage.
What got me, Chronic, was that it was “naked toddlers”.
Plural????
A guy I used to work with used Google to check on the whereabouts of his ex-wife with whom he was having a custody battle. Fortunately in this case, she’s the negative influence on the kids, not him(or so I believe).
But what’s that red dot on Branson’s island? Is he shooting at spacecraft with a giant laser?
And lastly, if I were looking for terrorism targets on Google, I think I would go looking for blurry areas. At least I’d know that someone thinks those places are important.
Minoow, yeah, that’s creepy.
Something that just occurred to me, though, is that British law states you cannot just go around photographing other people’s children without their parents’ knowledge or permission, and the law was enacted to combat the pervs that would take pictures of naked toddler picnics. There are reasonable exceptions to this law, and it’s not one that gets enforced very strongly, but you would think that an image like that out of England would raise some legal issues.
Yeah, that “naked toddler picnic” phrase just embiggens the wiggens. Phleh.