Please don't support the paranoid rantings of deluded cat fanciers who want to have public data censored to serve their own psychosis.

Is that too big for a bumper sticker? Just like there were nude sunbathers caught with the satellite pictures there will surely be other interesting things found in these pictures. Possibly significant others soliciting prostitutes or drug dealers commencing in their daily business. However all pictures are taken from a public place, and privacy concerns shouldn't out weigh the benefits of the service.

Worthersee wrote:

Please don't support the paranoid rantings of deluded cat fanciers who want to have public data censored to serve their own psychosis.

Is that too big for a bumper sticker? Just like there were nude sunbathers caught with the satellite pictures there will surely be other interesting things found in these pictures. Possibly significant others soliciting prostitutes or drug dealers commencing in their daily business. However all pictures are taken from a public place, and privacy concerns shouldn't out weigh the benefits of the service.

This is at the crux of present privacy battles. Yes, if you walk out of a strip club and your girlfriend is driving by, its not like she was doing anything wrong. She didn't violate your privacy. But if everything you ever do outside is always recorded all of the time, then in a very real sense you've lost something, even though you can't put a finger on the quantum recordings as being inappropriate, or the access to the quantum recordings as being inappropriate. Its the same thing in numerous contexts. You've no 4th amendment right to privacy in regard to the phone numbers you've dialed, because the phone company presumptively knows them, and you have to presume that they might tell the police. However, generally you wouldn't. Generally you'd think the phone company wouldn't tell the police who you are calling unless they suspected you of something. Its possible that the phone companies have been providing every number that everyone ever dials to the NSA. There is a difference. We better get good at recognizing it.

Decius wrote this:

This is at the crux of present privacy battles. Yes, if you walk out of a strip club and your girlfriend is driving by, its not like she was doing anything wrong. She didn't violate your privacy. But if everything you ever do outside is always recorded all of the time, then in a very real sense you've lost something, even though you can't put a finger on the quantum recordings as being inappropriate, or the access to the quantum recordings as being inappropriate. Its the same thing in numerous contexts. You've no 4th amendment right to privacy in regard to the phone numbers you've dialed, because the phone company presumptively knows them, and you have to presume that they might tell the police. However, generally you wouldn't. Generally you'd think the phone company wouldn't tell the police who you are calling unless they suspected you of something. Its possible that the phone companies have been providing every number that everyone ever dials to the NSA. There is a difference. We better get good at recognizing it.

Ahh.. The good old reasonable expectation of privacy...

Let me drill up one of my old points, just to have it in this discussion....

Eskimos have five different words for types of fallen snow. Snow is pretty important to Eskimos. If privacy is important to us, we need to do a better job at how we define different types of privacy, so we can safeguard them in different ways.

How do we start defining the different types of privacy, and getting people to accept those semantic distinctions? That would be a a good first step. Then we can get a dialog going about how to protect them...

Decius wrote: Yes, if you walk out of a strip club and your girlfriend is driving by, its not like she was doing anything wrong. She didn't violate your privacy.

Are the chances of being caught by the Google Van more likely than being caught by someone you know personally? Being caught in the act of something shady and anyone being able to Google it is more permanent, but I think people should be more concerned with the Kevin Bacon effect than Google Street View for now. By the way, I’m pretty sure the guy Decius made an example out of doesn’t have a girlfriend, so he should be in the clear. Maybe we should be more worried about insecure private cameras.

Decius wrote: You've no 4th amendment right to privacy in regard to the phone numbers you've dialed, because the phone company presumptively knows them, and you have to presume that they might tell the police. However, generally you wouldn't.

Your point about phones goes for security cameras as well. As we become increasingly more watched, and with the government able to subpoena video footage taken from a "private" security cameras, we’re getting closer to enabling totalitarian surveillance but at the same time enabling justice to better be served.

This service will really help people that need landmarks to follow directions and navigate today's urban jungle. In my opinion the benefits of street view navigation out weigh the privacy concerns.

Worthersee wrote:
This service will really help people that need landmarks to follow directions and navigate today's urban jungle. In my opinion the benefits of street view navigation out weigh the privacy concerns.

I think this service is offering more information than what is simply required in order to navigate.

Decius wrote:

... the new Google Maps feature...

I am compelled to mention that Google is a little late to the party on this functionality. Amazon was doing this two years ago -- although they have since discontinued their Maps service.

I presume many of the same discussions took place after the debut of A9 Maps.

possibly noteworthy wrote: I am compelled to mention that Google is a little late to the party on this functionality. Amazon was doing this two years ago

Microsoft is doing this too.