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July 14, 2007
Not Safe to Scratch Bum in Public
A new internet service by Google, called Street View, has caused privacy activists to emerge from their mountain dwellings, shaking their fists. Found on the Google Maps webpage, Street View allows users to zoom in at street-level for 360-degree views of major US cities. These images are captured by vans equipped with multiple cameras driving down public streets, like giant rogue eyeballs.
These hulking paparazzi terminators have been criticised for basically rumbling about taking unflattering images of people without their knowledge or consent. No longer do people feel comfortable doing compromising things in public, which is a strange sentence in itself if closely examined. I suppose it's really a matter of scale. I mean I don't care if the greengrocer and one old lady see me picking my nose, but I don't want it broadcast out to the universe.
It's clearly an intrusion on civil liberties to know that anywhere in the world someone could be watching you, in your own neighbourhood, watering the lawn in the middle of the day, or having sex with the homeless in an alley. One resident in the Street View affected area, Mary Kalin-Casey, says it 'gives her the shakes' to know that anyone in the world could zoom in on her living room window and see her cat sitting on its perch. Mrs Casey did not comment on what her cat had to hide.
Rob Shilkin of Google Australia had this to say; 'The Street View feature enables people to easily find, discover and plan activities relevant to a location'.
Oh come ON. Why do companies feel they have to come up with a socially acceptable justification for their products when everyone knows what they're actually for? As if ANYONE is going to Street View to find, discover and plan activities! 'Shall we pick up a Lonely Planet? Or shall we watch pictures from a truck with cameras on its head drive around randomly, and hope it passes a restaurant we like the look of?'
No! It voyeurism plain and simple! People are bored with their own streets, they want to look at someone else's! They want to see me picking my nose! They want to zoom in on Mrs Casey's cat! Doesn't Mrs Casey's cat deserve his/her privacy?
Currently this 'service' is restricted to the US, but plans have been mentioned for Australia. You have been warned! If you see a seemingly innocent van covered with rotating lenses, don't be fooled - it may not be as innocent as appearance suggests. It may indeed be a minion of Google, searching hungrily for people with g-strings riding up. So if you don't want a diesel fuelled Eye of Mordor zooming in on your cat, perhaps you need to find the 'ring' (a rock) and throw it into 'Mount Doom' (the camera lens).
Take heed.
*This piece originally appeared on www.rovedaily.com*
Posted by Sam Bowring at July 14, 2007 05:01 PM