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James Fee - jfee@weogeo.com
James works for WeoGeo helping people organize, share and monetize their geo-content.
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Stopping the Google Van From Crawling Your House
This entry was posted in Google, Google Maps. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
19 Comments
I agree, doesn’t the new streetview step on the boundaries of privacy rights?
That saved my sanity for another 10 minutes thanks!
@chris:
Actually as long at Google stays on public streets, they are totally within their rights.
I wonder if you hang a sign out front that says google is evil if they will censor the image!!!
Google is truly diversifying and extending their search capabilities.
I think that google may be on to something here in terms of actually making revenue on all this bandwidth sucking software.
Imagine if Google processed all their street images with some good OCR software and indexed all the license plates they found. Spouses could for a fee find where their partner’s vehicles were when Google drove by and keep tabs on them.
Better yet, I saw from /. that face recognition software is really getting good so why not cross index all the faces on all the streets with sites like facebook so you can track down where people were.
lOOK oUT! ITS THE GOOGLE VAN. COVER YOUR FACE! dOUG yOU aRE cRAZY!
Why is Doug crazy? What he mentioned seems resonable and possible, if not now, maybe here in the near future.
Right now, what google is doing doesn’t bother me. But, like anything now which is deemed good or benign. Someone will always find ways to use it for bad.
For example, I haven’t seen the site, just have heard about it from others. Supposedly the 9-11 locally is available in real-time. Which is cool, seeing where public safety is running to and from. But a criminal could use it to his advantage as well. Good idea, just takes one person to do bad with a good idea.
KoS
Actually, what google is doing now doesn’t bother me either. I do find it interesting that if the federal government was doing what google was doing that people would be going crazy and yet when a private company does this it is “cool” even though there is less oversight of a private company than the federal gov.
Oh I thought of a nice big brotherish use for this:
New York has a problem: People who live in NY and register their cars as if they were citizens of New Jersey (NJ has lower auto fees than NY). With this software you could look for NJ plates that are regularly parked in NY and start investigations.
Someone caught burglarizing a house? http://www.google.com/maps?q=San%20Francisco,%20CA,%20USA&ie=UTF8&ll=37.770274,-122.419195&spn=0.019981,0.048194&z=15&om=1&layer=c&cbll=37.762228,-122.417224&cbp=1,231.152235392829,0.592595123594951,2
@jack.
Find the date and see if there is a police report?
KoS
Jack did you find that yourself or did someone point it out to you?
U ppl are krazy. GOOGLE MAPS IS NOT REAL TIME! ITS NOT LIVE IMAGERY! Doug, u ideas ARE crazy. Sure, mabye, and i say mabye, u could tell where ur spouse was a month ago, but who really cares? Believe it or not, it takes time for them to input the images into their website. Funny how that works, I know.
Tia: fark.com had a link to the top 10 most amusing images found so far in the street scene images. The burglar was one of them.
i wish they would at least put a sign on their van so I could stand out in my yard and be immortalized in their database…..not.
Doug, something is seriously wrong with you! What do you care if people who live in NY register their cars in NJ? Most of them do it to make ends meet and to be able to put some food on the table for their children. People like make me sick!
Doug, something is seriously wrong with you! What do you care if people who live in NY register their cars in NJ? Most of them do it to make ends meet and to be able to put some food on the table for their children. People like YOU make me sick!
Make-a-wish…..just wait until Google updates the photos on a regular time bases. I would bet NY state govt would use it as a tool to nap people.
There will be someone who cares. The govt. Govt becomes mean and hard ass when it comes to money they think they are not receiving/making.
Case in point, a gentleman was powering his vehicle with vegetable oil. The state govt sent him a bill for not paying fuel tax(not buying gas). And the feds are going to send him a bill too. Guess what…who should care?? Nobody right?? What harm?? Guess, someone cared after all.
Note: only way they found out, a offical noticed a “powered by” bumper sticker on the vehicle. After which, they tracked the person down to fine him.
So direct your make me sick comment else where, it wasn’t warrented.
And zak, in your example, a mad ex-wife’s lawyer would use it as a tool to look for some type of offenses. All he would have to find is one instance, granted he may not find any. Never know until you look.
When there are new tools, people will use them in new and inventive ways. Never, say never.
Along the same lines. I love this story. A local manager for the compay Pictomerty had a new deck built onto his house. He didn’t have a permit and it was the wrong size. Nobody would have known, since the backyard isn’t visible from the road. And I bet nobody driving by, if they could or did see the deck, would have cared.
The company recently sold imagery to the county he lives in. Not long after the sell, he got a letter stating he wasn’t in line with local laws. Busted by his own product.
KoS