Google Street View Raises Privacy Concerns

Pcol writes "The New York Times is running a story about a woman who says her cat is clearly visible through the living room window of her second-floor apartment using Street View and that she has contacted Google asking that the photo be removed. 'The issue that I have ultimately is about where you draw the line between taking public photos and zooming in on people's lives,' Ms. Kalin-Casey said in an interview. 'The next step might be seeing books on my shelf. If the government was doing this, people would be outraged.' Wired has started a contest on the most interesting photos found using the new Google Tool that now includes sunbathing coeds, alleged drug deals, and the google van itself. 'I think that this product illustrates a tension between our First Amendment right to document public spaces around us, and the privacy interests people have as they go about their day,' says Kevin Bankston, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

Comments

I'd complain too

[Rik Sweeney]

if everyone could see my pussy through a window on the internet.

I'm so sorry, I just couldn't resist it...

Bad time to be leavin' the strip club

[CowTipperGore]

I hope his wife isn't checking out this Google Street View.

If you look closely

[hansoloaf]

If you look closely at the cat in the picture
You can see the cat looks desperate to get out of the house and away from the crazy lady.

Perhaps we should band up and conduct a rescue raid.

There's a solution to that

[wiredog]

People like me, 42 and overweight, should leave our blinds open at all times. Eventually we'll start showing up in Google Views buck naked.

And that will be the end of google views.

Re:But... if you can see it from the street,...

[T-Ranger]

Only a cat was in the window. Did the cat tell the owner about the Google van? So the problem is that the cat can't grep access_log's?

attention whore

[codename.matrix]

Well she doesn't want a pretty low res picture of her cat in Street View but has a high-res picture of her, her cat and the room on the nytimes.com ...

Re:Personally

[MikeBabcock]

I want the shot of the locals stripping down the van and selling off the high end cameras ;-)

The answer is...

[Anonymous Coward]

...42 snapshots.

New moderation option needed

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could mod you "Crackpot".

Re:Well that's perfectly reasonable

[Klinky]

It's a new product. Google Paparazzi(TM). "Where you're famous even if you don't want to be!"

Re:People would want to look at

[jez9999]

I was gonna look at you, but then I changed my mind after I found out that stealing bandwidth made the baby Jesus cry. You monster. :-(

Re:No it isn't.

[Darlantan]

Because every now and then he likes to sneak a quick peek at my hairy man-ass through my window. Duh.

Personal attacks: For when you can't really argue, but don't have the good grace or sense to STFU.

Perhaps jcr just has a thing for knowing what he can and cannot do legally, like most every wise person should?

Re:not just her cat

[clem]

I agree. It's a whole lot of fuss over nothing. Like anyone's going to log onto the Internet to see some woman's pussy.