Switzerland Continues To Fight Google Street View; Takes Google To Court

from the swiss-neutrality dept

A few months ago, when Google launched its "Street View" tool in Switzerland, the government got upset and told Google to take the site down because it violated people's privacy. This was despite the fact that Google had been discussing the project with the government and put in place multiple privacy safeguards, including blurring faces and license plates. Apparently, it wasn't enough. Mr. LemurBoy alerts us to the news that Switzerland is now taking Google to court over Street View, claiming that it doesn't blur people enough, and that sometimes the cameras can see over fences or walls. Of course, anyone walking down the street can see the same things as well, and if they're tall enough, they can see over walls. Is Switzerland going to take tall people to court as well?

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Switzerland Tells Google To Take Down Street View

from the how-dare-you-provide-a-useful-service dept

Following a bunch of other countries, it looks like Switzerland is the latest to freak out over Google Street View and to ban it, just a week after it was introduced. Google is apparently surprised by this move, noting that it had been talking to the Swiss gov't and had a bunch of privacy safeguards in place, which seemed to be working. Of course, you have to ask, are there surveillance cameras in Switzerland? If so, why is that okay when Google's Street View is not? Surveillance cameras are real-time. Street View is not. Surveillance cameras do not blur faces/license plates. Street View does. Why is one allowed and the other not? Of course, given how many local gov'ts have freaked out about Street View, it does make you wonder why Google would launch it these days without first having assurances from the gov't that it would be okay.

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Artist Paints Worldly Paintings Via Google Street View; Google Cheers Him On

from the hear-that,-AP? dept

By now you've all heard about the lawsuit between Shepard Fairey for taking a photo, which the AP claims it owns (though, that's in dispute), and turning it into the iconic election poster for Barack Obama. However, it seems that other companies don't react in such a way when people turn their photographs into art. Ed Kohler points us to a story of a painter, Bill Guffey, who has been using Google Street View to find scenes around the globe to paint. He's able to paint far away towns without leaving his house. And he's doing it for commercial purposes. The article notes that he's painted nearly 100 such images, and sold 30 to 40 of them, some for as much as $1,500.

Now, if Google were acting like the AP, it might freak out and demand compensation. Of course, it would probably lose in court (as the AP is likely to lose) because the works are transformative and almost certainly fair use. But, being Google (and having copyright lawyers who understand these things), it doesn't seem likely to do that. Instead, it actually appears to be quite thrilled to find out about this project:

"When we were creating Street View, we were excited about all the everyday uses, like looking for parking or planning trips," Stephen Chau, product manager for Google Street View, said. "Bill's use of Street View, to inspire his paintings and to create a virtual community of artists, is a remarkable example that we hadn't imagined but are really excited to see. It's been amazing to see the possibilities that have opened up as Street View has been brought to more places around the world."

The AP really ought to take note.

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As Google Agrees To Delete Unblurred Street View Images In Germany, One Is Used To Solve A Crime

from the well-how-about-that dept

Earlier this week, Google agreed to delete unblurred images in its Street View database. If you don't know, Google Street View involves cars driving around photographing everything, so they can be placed on Google Maps. It's quite useful. However, some folks (and politicians) have been up in arms about the supposed privacy violation of photographing people walking in public (no, I don't get it, either). To deal with this, Google has been blurring faces of people. However, it usually keeps the unblurred versions in a database for future use (and for better training of its blurring mechanism).

However, just as the company agreed to delete the unblurred photos in its German database, over in the UK, such photos may be useful in helping to solve a mugging. The victim of the mugging (amazingly) noticed that one of the Street View photos was taken right before the mugging happened. It involved two guys who stole his bike, and the photo shows the two guys walking right behind the kid. He alerted the police, who got the unblurred image from Google and were able to track down the accused muggers. Of course, it's not clear if they'll actually be convicted or if there's really enough evidence. In the meantime, though, if you're thinking of mugging someone, maybe take a look around to see if there's a Google car driving along side you first.

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Japan, Greece The Latest To Join The Anti-Street View Party

from the jump-on-the-bandwagon dept

Lots of people around the world have worked themselves into a lather over the supposed privacy invasions of Google Street View, as well as the security threat they say it creates. These fears are largely unfounded, since Street View displays images of public spaces, and since it really doesn't give would-be criminals information they couldn't easily find elsewhere; and most courts and governments have agreed. Still, the Street View backlash continues to spread, with groups in Japan and Greece the latest to take exception to it. Officials in Greece have forced Google to stop the project there until it provides more details on how long it will store photos and how it will protect people's privacy. In Japan, Google is being forced to re-shoot photos in a dozen cities because its car-mounted cameras were too high. It will lower its cameras there by 16 inches so they can't see over fences around people's homes. That's a nice gesture from Google, but will Japan also ban multi-story buildings that let people see over fences? Will ladders and scaffolding be next?

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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UK Says Street View Is Fine... As Canadian Politicians Get Worried About It

from the is-it-so-hard-to-understand dept

I'm not sure what it is about Google's Street View offering that so freaks people out. It's simply taking photos of public areas, not private properties. Yet, we already saw how folks in the UK freaked out about it, insisting that it must be illegal. Well, the UK's "privacy watchdog" has now announced that Google Street View is perfectly legal, so there's nothing to worry about. The group pointed out that there were significant safeguards in place, and any violation of privacy was minimal. Of course, there are still others who haven't quite realized this yet. Colin writes to alert us that politicians in Alberta, Canada are now the latest to worry about how Street View might violate privacy, with the Privacy Commissioner getting upset that Google had started taking photos in Alberta without first concluding talks with his office to make sure that everything was on the right side of the law.

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If You're Going To Complain About Street View Invading Your Privacy, You Might Want To Check Out What Your Government Is Doing

from the we-showed-them! dept

The British government appears to be on a track to undermine its citizens' privacy by collecting more and more information about their online behavior, but some villagers there recently took a stand against a far more evil menace: Google Street View. As one of the Street View vehicles turned down a street in the village of Broughton, a guy took exception, riled up his neighbors and they mobbed the vehicle (via CNet), forcing it into a hasty retreat. While the government goes on forcing ISPs to retain customer data like email, Street View seems to be attracting much more public ire. The main rabblerouser in this most recent case says he's concerned that Street View is invading his privacy and "facilitating crime" by putting pictures of his and his neighbors' houses online, echoing earlier calls that Google Maps facilitates terrorist attacks. The fact remains that Street View doesn't show a would-be thief anything they couldn't find out by walking or driving down the same road; in fact it seems a little unreasonable to think that any decent criminal would rely solely on reconnaissance from Street View when casing a target. The privacy uproar over Street View in the UK seems a little misplaced when the British government is taking much more invasive, and potentially much more harmful, steps to infringe the privacy of its citizens.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Which Is The Bigger Privacy Invasion: Google Street View Images Or Major Newspaper Reprinting Those Images?

from the just-wondering... dept

Last week there was quite an uproar in the UK over how Google's Street View offering was somehow a violation of privacy, despite the images being taken out in public. Also, Google was quite quick in removing any questionable images as soon as they were brought to Google's attention. Yet, in true Streisand Effect fashion, the uproar and the removals has only led to much more focus on those very images. Reader Steve Cook points out that, in fanning the flames of the so-called "privacy violation," The Daily Mail has reprinted a bunch of the "questionable" images which Google had already deleted. So, in creating a privacy uproar about it, now those images are more popular than they would have been if people had just left it alone.

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UK Privacy Activist Claims Google Maps Is Illegal

from the oh-come-on dept

We've seen some silly claims about Google Maps/Google Earth lately, and they just keep coming. The latest is that a privacy activist in the UK is going to issue a legal challenge against Google's Street View offering in the UK, claiming that the photos violate peoples' privacy. Note: these are all photos of people in public places. The UK government has apparently given the go-ahead for Street View in the UK, but this guy is going to challenge that ruling, claiming that Google needs to get prior consent from everyone in the photos before using them. He's not at all satisfied that Google allows the blurring of faces and the ability to take down photos you really dislike. It doesn't sound like this legal challenge will go very far. The guy isn't even sure what law he's going to accuse Google of breaking, and the lawyers quoted in the article seem quite skeptical that there's anything illegal about the Street View product.

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Politician Wants Google To Blur Street View Images Of Buildings; Next Up: Blurring Reality

from the oh-come-on dept

A California politician has introduced some legislation that would require companies like Google that offer "street view" photographs of certain areas to blur images of certain buildings, including schools, gov't buildings, churches and hospitals. The argument is that such photos allow terrorists to plan attacks. Next up, we're wondering if Assemblyman Joel Anderson will also demand that we blur reality. Anyone can walk by these buildings in public (like Google did) and take a photo. Unless he's going to force all cameras to take blurry images, it seems pretty ridiculous to think that this law makes sense. If terrorists are going to attack a building, they'll figure out a way to do so whether or not some of the images are online (and, as some have pointed out, most of these buildings have photos online already... on their own websites). It's really getting ridiculous seeing politicians freak out about a technology just because it could be used for terrorism.

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The Borings Eloquently Appeal The Street View Ruling, Declaring: Google, Don't Tread On Me

from the eloquence-means-nothing-under-the-law dept

Last month, a court totally dismissed the lawsuit filed by Aaron and Christine Boring, who had complained about Google's Street View images of their home, suggesting that the company had driven onto their private driveway to get the photos. The court pointed out, correctly, that the Borings had no case because they could have availed themselves of the simple mechanism on Google to remove the images. Still, the Borings are now appealing, and turning this into quite the epic battle of small guy vs. big company:

"Whether the trespass is by a foreign king, or the royalty of big business, does not matter. The Borings, such as our American forefathers in millennia past, are entitled to proclaim, 'Google, Don't Tread On Me.'"

That seems to be overplaying their hand just a bit. As is the claim that the original ruling made them "Google slaves":

"This Court tells Google that it is okay to enter onto a person's private property without permission. I would not teach that rule to my child. This Court's ruling makes our private property a Google Slave; our property is no longer our own: it is forced to work for another, against its will, without compensation, for the profit of another. The Federal Court should free slavery, not create it."

It's not like Google took over their property or anything. The Google Maps car looks like it pulled into, and backed out of their driveway -- which it may have confused as another road. It did no damage, and the end result -- the photo -- could have been easily removed by the family. This is hardly a case of a massive trampling of anyone's rights.

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Court Tosses Lawsuit Against Google Over Streetview Photos Of Home

from the rather-boring-afterall dept

You may recall last year that a couple in Pittsburgh, Aaron and Christine Boring, got freaked out after they found photos of their home on Google Maps using the "Street View" feature. So, rather than use the tools provided to opt-out, they did what any American would do: they sued Google, claiming a variety of offenses from privacy violations to "devaluing" their property. The whole lawsuit seemed rather pointless: the couple could have easily used the options provided to have their photo taken down, and in filing the lawsuit they brought much more attention to the photos of their home online.

It appears that a judge has agreed, dismissing the entire lawsuit while noting the pointlessness of the lawsuit. The court noted that there was no evidence as to why the photos were offensive or damaging, and the fact that the couple chose not to use the available tools to opt-out basically killed their entire argument.

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Google Street View Helps Find Kidnapped Child

from the well-who-woulda-thunk? dept

You may remember that a couple months ago an advocacy group was trying to whip up a storm about Google's Street View service. The claim alleged that child predators would use Street View to find where children live and then kidnap them. Well, it turns out that Street View did assist with a kidnapping.

Only, not as the worriers predicted.

Instead, a smart cop was able to use Street View to help relocate a kidnapped child. In fact, in conjunction with the GPS data for the child's phone, provided by the cellular provider, the officer was able to use Street View to remotely find what he thought may be a motel in Virginia. Furthering Googling confirmed Street View and local police were able to find the child. Obviously, stories like this will be far and few between -- but so will ones where bad guys use technology in an evil way. That's the reality: technology can be good or bad, it depends on the user. Luckily, in this case, we had a clever cop using technology for the best.

Kevin Donovan is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Kevin Donovan and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Japanese Group Asks Google To Shut Down Street View

from the public-is-private dept

Apparently a Japanese civilian group, The Campaign Against Surveillance Society, is asking Google to shut down its Street View offering. This is hardly the first time that people have complained about Street View, but, honestly, it's difficult to see how this is a "surveillance" issue or a violation of anyone's privacy. Google is taking photos of public spaces that anyone is free to look at. It's not doing it in real-time or anything. It's just a still photo of a public place that anyone with a camera could take. I can understand people's concerns about growing surveillance or loss of privacy, but efforts to combat those things should focus on areas where there are real threats to privacy -- not a useful service like Google Street View.

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Press Not Buying Google Street View As A Threat To Children

from the good-for-them dept

A few months back, we pointed out how ridiculous it was that a child advocacy group had put out a scary press release claiming that child predators could use Google Street View to prey on children. They could also, you know, walk up and down the street. It's nice to see that the mainstream press is at least calling the group, Stop Internet Predators, out on how ridiculous this is. Nationally syndicated columnist Larry Magid sarcastically slams the group for such pointless fearmongering, not only pointing out that it's easier for predators to just walk up and down the street, but also making the following point:

Instead of banning Google Street View, maybe we should put up walls between streets and sidewalks so that predators can't see children walking home from school. And while we're at it, let's ban public outdoor parks and recreation areas or at least find ways to hide the children playing there. Or just keep children away from churches, schools and other places where pedophiles have been known to operate.

Considering how often we end up seeing the mainstream press simply parrot these sorts of press releases, it's good to see them hitting back against these more questionable attempts at creating moral panics.

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Google's Latest Silly Privacy Problem

from the oh-no!-someone-saw-me-outside! dept

Well now that Google's dealt with one ridiculous privacy complaint, it appears it has another to deal with. As Google is preparing to launch its "Street View" offerings in Europe (which let people see photos of the streets they search for on Google Maps), some privacy groups are complaining how its a violation of people's privacy. Apparently the fact that they were photographed out in public hasn't occurred to the privacy group. Even more to the point, as Google has pointed out in response, despite the fact that anyone caught in these photographs was in public, it's recently rolled out a system to automatically blur faces of people who end up in the Street View photos. Overall, the whole complaint seems to be much ado about nothing from privacy advocates who have much more important things to focus on.

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Entire Minnesota Town Removed From Google Street View

from the don't-trespass-me,-bro dept

Apparently a small "privately-owned" Minnesota town, called North Oaks, that includes "no trespassing" signs on all streets entering the community, wasn't particularly happy when it found out that Google's Street View vehicles made a trip through the town. After discovering (gasp!) images of houses in the town on Google Maps, the town demanded that Google take down the images -- which Google did. There's no real controversy here, since the town (correctly) asked Google to remove the images rather than rush to sue, but the whole thing still seems bizarre. What really is the big deal about Google Street View having photos online? It's difficult to see how this is any sort of privacy violation, but it does seem these days people go out of their way to think that they can control things that really shouldn't be controlled. Legally, the town may be on solid ground, since the community is on private land -- but it's difficult to see why they would object so strenuously to this offering.

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Is It That Difficult To Understand The Difference Between Public Data And Private Data?

from the apparently-so... dept

Just a little while after some folks in Pittsburgh, PA sued Google over its Street View offering, it appears that Google is getting ready to launch a similar offering in Australia. However, rather than celebrate a rather useful service, there's a somewhat ridiculous newspaper article in Australia charging Google execs with hypocrisy for not revealing private data about Australian Google execs. It's hard to see where the hypocrisy is here. Google is creating a database of public info, and the newspaper, by its own admission, was asking Google to give up private data on its execs. Despite what the newspaper implies, Google's Street View doesn't reveal who lives where -- it just shows photos taken from public roadways, just as anyone would see driving up and down those same roads. To equate that with private data about executives is simply wrong.

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Pittsburgh Couple Sues Google Over Photos Of Their House

from the that-sounds-familiar... dept

The term "the Streisand Effect" was coined back in 2005 in reference to Barbara Streisand's decision in 2003 to sue an aerial photographer who, in the process of photographing the entire west coast from a helicopter, took a photo of her house. Not only did she lose the case (and have to pay lawyers' fees), the photo of her house, that no one had paid any attention to, got a ton of traffic. If she had any claim at all (which she really didn't), it would have to do with her being a public figure. However, the situation is even more ridiculous when you're dealing with non-public figures.

Yet, here we are in a nearly identical story. Aaron and Christine Boring are a couple who live in Pittsburgh and apparently have freaked out that Google's "Street View" offering includes a photo of their home. In fact, they've sued Google claiming that the photos of their home violate their privacy and "devalue" the property. They also claim that it was trespassing because there was a clear sign saying that the road was a private road. Of course, as the AP article notes, most of the info is already public, including photos of the house which are available on the The Allegheny County real estate Web site. Of course, looking over the sets of photos, it looks as though the Google street view team may have driven up the couple's driveway a bit, which perhaps (just slightly) explains the complaint. Still, Google says that if anyone wants photos of their property removed, they just need to ask Google and prove that they own the property in question. No lawsuit needed. In the meantime, of course, just as with Streisand, the Google photos of the Borings' house are now widely available and getting a lot more attention. Apparently, the Borings don't listen to NPR.

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