Am I the only one who isn't creeped out by Google Street level view?
I probably don't have enough imagination - but the idea that Google now has street-level stills for select metropolitan areas doesn't really bother me all that much. There's the guy who's worried that the photo and timestamp will be definitive proof that he ditched work one afternoon, or dumber things - but I'm just not getting this.
The stills were taken in public places, they weren't peeking into windows, and anyone who is cutting work is taking the risk that they will be spotted when they are out in plain sight. Sure, Google's making it easier, but it's not like they are listing your name next to the photo and are making the results searchable. I suppose if the photos were updated regularly, it would make remote surveillance easier - but I don't think that's in the cards.
So a guy's on a street corner and is (let's say) photographed taking a whiz on a building. Somebody who knows him sees the photo on Google. Does this man have a gripe? He could have been spotted by anyone when he did it, so the fact that he happened to be photographed by somebody who posted it on an immensely popular website doesn't really change things.
Am I off my tree?
1 comment:
This is just one of those thorny questions. It's kind of like the information on the assessor's site. Yeah, it's public and it's always been public. But now it's also easy. It used to be that someone would either have to be unusually persistent or have a good reason to find out how much you paid for your house or whether you owed property taxes. Now, at least in Madison, any time you just feel like finding that stuff out, all you need is a name or address and an Internet connection.
Since it's always been public info, it's hard to find a gripe there, but maybe the reality is that in the past, there was sort of a gray area between public and private, called "hard to find" and that gray area is eroding.
A person is a lot less likely to just happen upon a coworker peeing in public in the course of their normal daily activity than they are to see someone doing that (or something not illegal, like pulling out a snuggie or picking their nose) if they're surfing the Google street-level photos of that person's neighborhood.
I think the main danger is that it will cause people to be more self-conscious about what they do in public. Ok, so maybe a net decrease in the number of people who pick their noses in public doesn't seem that bad, but doesn't it contribute to an atmosphere of uncertainty and discomfort in your own surroundings? Isn't that ultimately not a great thing? Don't you behave differently if you think you're being watched, even if you're not doing anything illegal? And I don't mean anything huge, but I think it does kind of chip away at - something.
And, your last question is kind of a non-sequitur. Of course you're off your tree.
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