Village mob thwarts Google Street View car

Where I live, the county comes by and photographs every house to make tax assessments. They don't ask your permission, and they don't advertise - they take the photos surreptitiously.

Not only that, but you can look up your neighbor's property and see what they paid for it, what it was assessed at, if their taxes are current, the whole nine yards - and they can do it for you.

Oh, but the government is doing it. Right. That makes it OK. They love us and would never do anything to harm us. Google is evil. Gotcha.
 
bmattock said:
Where I live, the county comes by and photographs every house to make tax assessments. They don't ask your permission, and they don't advertise - they take the photos surreptitiously.

Not only that, but you can look up your neighbor's property and see what they paid for it, what it was assessed at, if their taxes are current, the whole nine yards - and they can do it for you.

Oh, but the government is doing it. Right. That makes it OK. They love us and would never do anything to harm us. Google is evil. Gotcha.
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we actually have a particularly aggressive building inspector who takes pictures every few months of the neighborhood and compares them to see if he can red tag any projects the city hasn't approved. my wife(9 months pregnant) caught him in front of our house once screaming at a contractor up the hill to stop working. she almost fell down the stairs!

i agree that google isn't alone in being evil.

bob
 
bmattock said:
Where I live, the county comes by and photographs every house to make tax assessments. They don't ask your permission, and they don't advertise - they take the photos surreptitiously.
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If they photograph your home without you knowing it, then they fail the "surreptious" test. I guess this would be fairly typical of government employees, though.
 
bmattock said:
Oh, but the government is doing it. Right. That makes it OK. They love us and would never do anything to harm us. Google is evil. Gotcha.
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It doesn't make it OK, but every four years the people have the opportunity to fire the government. Not so with a corporation like Google.
 
I think the best advice to home owners is to do exactly this - confront the drivers and deter them from driving down the street.

Also, filing a trademark (not a copyright!) on your home and then later clogging google's legal department with lawsuits should also prove to be quite effective.
 
Kevin said:
I think the best advice to home owners is to do exactly this - confront the drivers and deter them from driving down the street.
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I don't know what effect it would have in the UK, but in the USA, it would get the homeowners arrested if the driver chose to press charges.

Also, filing a trademark (not a copyright!) on your home and then later clogging google's legal department with lawsuits should also prove to be quite effective.
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Such copyright have not been enforcible in the USA. You can't stop a person taking a photo of your house here.
 
I actually think these "Street Maps" are quite useful. The same goes for Google Maps. These are updated every few months I suppose?

I'd be more concerned with the CCTV cameras everywhere which seem to be used as a replacement for Police Officers but never seem to be pointing in the right direction when something does happen.

As for the mob - they were probably het up over the following:

- They thought it would steal their souls.
- They had a witch burning later.
- If someone looked at the Streetmap and it showed a number of people, they might deduce that all the residents are related.
 
Not that I think Google Street View is a good idea, (I actually find it kind of creepy) but they have just as much right to take photos from a public place as we do. How many threads have been started and discussed at length on this forum about photographers rights? I don't see a whole lot of difference in Google taking street level photos and making them available to the public on thier website and me taking a photo of a house and posting it on a publicly acessable website such as Flickr.

Alan
 
I really just don't get the fear. Anyone wanting to rob your house could simply do the same thing much less obviously than this big Google car- zip by with a video camera at sunrise. What do all these scared people have to hide?
 
i for one have a problem with "streetview" but i won't bore you with my thoughts on the matter.

what i don't get is the glaring DOUBLE STANDARD. with all the hubub about what we can't photograph, the laws coming into place and the prevailing paranoia about photography in general why is it ok for google to drive around in cars and photograph everything in sight? is it merely because they have the $ to stare down any of these silly "laws"?

why would any "terrorist" (i apologize for using a word i am so sick of hearing it makes me cringe) risk photographing anything anymore? why not fire up google "streetwhatever" and get all the info you need? with that logic perhaps the authorities and the want to be authorities (security guards) could all stop bugging me?

joe citizen? no no no... big corporate monstrosity? sure
 
sepiareverb said:
I really just don't get the fear. Anyone wanting to rob your house could simply do the same thing much less obviously than this big Google car- zip by with a video camera at sunrise. What do all these scared people have to hide?
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forgive me if i come off rude but the "if you haven't done anything wrong you don't need to be concerned" is a very thin argument. the concept of civil liberty doesn't end at the end of ones own nose (or conscience).
 
Not liking anti-photography laws one bit, I would still say that the difference between street maps and someone with a camera is street maps is for everyone to see and the bloke with the camera (perhaps wearing a communist hat or a hook for a hand) isn't.

I'm not a terrorist but I've heard they need to determine patterns &c. - something that they can't do with a street map 360 degree view which is updated every few months.
 
Sadly nothing in this world seems private anymore. Anyone suggesting that some things should remain private, and balking at the idea that everything should be open to public scrutiny are simply labeled as a loony. The fact that something is legal does not make it right, or appropriate. Yes the government has been and continues to snoop on its citizens, but there any many that believe that that is inherently wrong, even if it is legal. While technology is always presented as a wonderful thing few people aver stop to consider the downside to any so called technological advancement. Innovators, scientists and technology geeks think that because something can be done it should be done. I do not agree. I think few people ever consider the long term or ethical/moral consequences to their actions and discoveries.
 
The idea of stopping the Google car coming into the village is typical English village behavior.

I lived in one well-to-to picturesque village where some people in big houses actually dug up the public street outside their homes to stop traffic passing.

Those idiots thought they owned the place.

And I told them more than a few times how very wrong they were.

They didn't like me for it!
 
The next logical step would be Google Street Video. Google will nail video cameras to telephone poles across the nation, providing 24/7 feeds of everyone's house, and accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

Who here thinks that would be going too far? If this is too much, but Street view is fine, then what is the threshold point?
 
"I think the best advice to home owners is to do exactly this - confront the drivers and deter them from driving down the street."

Yes, and the next time we see you photographing anything or anybody in a public place perhaps we should confront you and "deter" you and prevent you from walking down that public street.

I can't believe that any photographer would argue that you can't make a photograph in a public place. (Notice I'm NOT arguing that you can USE that photo any way you like.)

You all do see this works two ways, eh?
 
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MaxElmar said:
"I think the best advice to home owners is to do exactly this - confront the drivers and deter them from driving down the street."

Yes, and the next time we see you photographing anything or anybody in a public place perhaps we should confront you and "deter" you and prevent you from walking down that public street.

I can't believe that any photographer would argue that you can't make a photograph in a public place.

You all do see this works two ways, eh?
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So would you say that any right held by an individual should be also extended to a corporation?
 
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