Blurred German Houses Get Egged By Google Street View Fans
from the your-house-is-not-blurred-in-real-life dept
We found it to be somewhat silly that various folks in Germany could have Google blur the image of their house, as some sort of misguided privacy notion. As if to highlight the fact that if your house is blurred that it's not as if people can't see it in real life, it appears some overzealous Google fans have started throwing eggs at houses that chose to be blurred. As if the message wasn't clear enough, the houses that were egged also had notices taped to their mailboxes stating "Google's cool." That all seems a bit extreme (Google, rightly, is stating that this is not "acceptable behavior"). While I agree with Google that this is really childish behavior, there is a bit of a typical Streisand Effect to all of this. In trying to block the images of their homes, they have only served to call that much more attention to their homes.
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Filed Under: germany, privacy, street view
Companies: google
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It's not really about privacy
I've been following some blogs where Germans have weighed in on the subject, and it really seems to be more about socking it to Google. I'm a diehard SV fan myself and appreciate the Street View service but I also respect the wishes of people who want their homes blurred, for whatever reason. My only issue is with the large apartment complexes in downtown areas, especially those that seem to be part of largely commercial buildings.
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