dot.life

What is it exactly that people are concerned about here?

As you pointed out Rory anyone can stand in front of a house, take pictures and post them online.

It's not like Google are doing anything that the average person cannot.

If the residents are worried about their homes being shown online because of the potential for burglary and such other crimes they really need to think again, most burglaries are crimes of opportunity and not having their house pictured on Street View won't stop that.

There is no privacy invasion because Google are not actually photographing inside peoples homes, and using the argument that their back yards are private is lame because again anyone can take a pic from their house next door or opposite and post it online.

I really don't see people's problem with Street View. I can understand it if people do not wish to found for various reasons, i.e. they are trying to get away from persons who in the past have harmed them, and other such reasons but for the average person there is nothing to fear from being caught on camera putting the bins out.

Perhaps people such as those in Broughton wouldn't mind if they were paid or the value of their homes increased due to them being on Street View...

Can't believe with everything there is to worry about at the moment, that these people are worried I might see an old photo of their house on the web... even though I could walk past & look at it very closely any time I like... think there's some people in Broughton who would do better to get out in the wide world & see if they can find themselves a life!

Just don't go anywhere near the place with a mobile phone or a lighter.

They may burn you as a witch!

These people should maybe reevaluate their priorities in life.

Broughton twinned with Stepford ?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I've decided that I'll be going on a photo tour of the village - and posting all of my photos online.

Immature- yes!
Satisfying- also, yes.

#6)

The point is Google aren't doing anything even close to illegal so your argument should be with the law if you want your opinion protected. The fact is you can remove your property from StreetView so whats the big deal?

If you don't want people looking at your house then maybe the people complaining should go and live were no one else is. I can understand people want privacy but this whole Daily Mail style bandwagon is ridiculous, and most of the people complaining don't know anything about Google StreetView, which was shown by Cllr Bint who didn't know you could ask Google to remove the images. The first rule of complaining is know what your complaining about!

#6, you're rather missing the point. Given the world-beating density of CCTV cameras and the current rush towards ID cards, super-databases, biometry, and police calls to watch your friends and family like hawks for 'suspicious' behaviour, getting incensed about Google Streetview is rather like moaning about a mosquito while leopards are gnawing at your ankles.

Is Google Streetview invasive and creepy? Well, maybe a little. It's also a fascinating, and potentially invaluable source of social information for future generations. But it is most definitely not peeking through your (or anyone else's) curtains, and it is absolutely the wrong stalking-horse to be getting worried about.

If you want to object to something, please, in the name of all sanity, object to the rise of our Surveillance State.

@lordBettGelert
You views on privacy are perfectly valid but are just that, views. No one has a right to their own image, as bad as that sounds, unless they arrange for it to be written in law, as some celebrities have done. You don't own the image rights to your house, your car, the bins outside your house or any other such things.

As Rory rightly states Google are going above and beyond what the law requires them to do and I for one commend this. I think it comes down to the simple of adage of 'if you have nothing to hide then why are you worried?'

The other point is that the pictures are all very old by the time they appear online. The ones in central London were taken well over a year ago as I recognise some of the road works that were being carried out at the time.

I really enjoy StreetView and hope that the narrow minded among the population are not successful in their quest to have it removed.

In taking forward Ravenmorpheus' 'taking photos of people' examples, lordBeddGelert's in taking the debate away from its orginal context, i.e. the rights one may or may not have over 'taking photographs of homes' and these being disseminated.

Unfortunately, his comments turn into a rant I was embarrased to read - those opposed to his views are dismissed 'selfish, moronic imbeciles'. This level of contribution does not move the discussion forward.

This mob acted unlawfully.

Google has the right, like EVERYONE, to photograph from public land in any direction whatsoever.

It is as simple as that.

Have you heard of the "Streisand Effect?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

If you make a big stink about censoring something, it's quite likely that the exact OPPOSITE effect will take place.

I'm from the US. I've never heard of Broughton. But I was on google maps this morning, checking it out. And you can be sure I'm not the only one.

If the Google van had taken pictures and no fuss was made, far fewer people would even know Broughton existed.

Adman

@lordBeddGelert -

Do you realise how ridiculous you are being with your righteous indignation of not being informed?

Do your local authorities inform you when they put up CCTV cameras that could potentially peek into your living room through the window?

Does your local authority inform you of anything else that goes on in your street?

No they do not because they have no reason to because you have no right to claim privacy is breached when something such as a camera is not directly entering your home or viewing what sordid little affairs you may get up to in said home.

If you're so worried about such "breaches of privacy" then as has been mentioned you would be far better off directing your "superior" views towards the government and their suerveillance methods as there are far worse things than Street View to be worried about, ID cards that make people in this country feel like foreigners for example.

I for one would welcome Google to come to Braintree, Essex, UK and take photos of the road and the house in which I live in as I have nothing to hide and I don't subscribe to the views that "rights" campaigners band about to cause fear and mistrust of technology/nformation that can be quite useful to the average person in the street.

Blimey, we Brits do know how to make a huge fuss over nothing while letting the important things slip by.
As been said before, with the Banks, Recession, the Iraq Fiasco, the Surveillance Camera on every street corner and the plans for more Government Databases all taking place at the moment, why do the press dedicate so many column inches talking about a tiny amount of people complaining about a tiny village having their photos taken.

For me personally Google Street View is a fantastic boon to navigation, trip planning, potential house moves, even deciding if a restaurant or pub is as nice as the brochure / website says it is.

Let the Luddites stay with stacks of A-Z's, but let the rest of us move forward.

FixMyPcManchester

Every time we type on these forums and send emails we are monitored.

#6. The fact is people who complain about things like this, as many have said already, draw attention to themselves and the fight they are taking on.

Honestly, as we are listened to, watched online and watched as we walk around shops and streets what difference does Street View make to things. Especially as the photos are out of date the minute they are taken. I still laugh when people comment that their house is still a field on google maps as they think the photos are in real time.

A positive for Street View is I have used it to find a shop I was looking for. It was really handy for me to see what else was around it to provide points of reference.

ravenmorpheus - but I am also against the hideous creeping surveillance society which we are exposed to, whether CCTV or the lack of consideration from other people in terms of spying on back gardens. I am not suggesting activities are sordid, you buffoon, merely that if I am enjoying a drink with friends I am then entitled to a reasonable expectation of 'family life' and privacy - a view which is enshrined by the Human Rights Act.

If you want to be rude, inconsiderate and ill mannered in taking pictures on trains and then putting the onus on other people to complain if they are not happy, rather than asking considerately if they are willing to be included in a photo being taken, then you clearly belong to the increasing number of people fully signed up to the 'Big Brother' society.

This typical "It's your problem, not mine" if you are inconvenienced by loud music or invasion of privacy is a clear sign of the lack of civility and consideration which is simply not a feature of more advanced societies, like the Japanese, which make it essential that cameras make a sound when taking pictures so that surreptitious and invasive non-consenting picture taking is avoided.

YOU might think other people don't have a right to have concern, consideration and consent to be a feature of taking pictures of them, but that is YOUR view - others may have, and be perfectly entitled to a DIFFERENT VIEW which should be respected rather than subjected to a facile patronising and condescending refusal to consider their opinions and feelings.

All this stuff about seeing INSIDE peoples' houses... nothing I've seen on Street View comes even close to that.... and even if it did I wouldn't be that interested in finding out you need a new 3-piece suite....

lordBeddGelert: Well said. Thanks.. However ravenmorpheus has a point that getting permission first is a bit over the top. IN essence I agree with you but we as the public have been far to apathetic about this from the get go to complain now.

Hey any of you "I've got nothing to hide" people want to post your home address here so I can come stand on a PUBLIC road and take pictures? Any takers? Probably not. Hypocrites.

Hey you "Google has every right and they have been more than accomdating.. blah blah" Well, yes in some respect that is true.

But if you think what Google is doing is something that anyone can do ravenmorpheus... that's idiotic. Really, you can recreate street view all by yourself? Well I'd like to see that.

All you "google did nothing wrong" whiners seem to not have watched the video, did you not see that man said the Google car camera was very close to his house. Not all houses are far enough from the street to 'anonymise' whatever the the camera is taking pictures of. Do you think that Google is looking at -every single picture- and blurring out what might be considered invasive? There is no mention of that in this article.

Yes, I think street view has some very neat advantages and has been very useful to myself. I am not a criminal, I have a moral code and would not use this info in a bad way.

However, what about you people living out of the way? Isn't it nice to know that anyone can now get sattellite images of all the ways to approach your house. That criminals now have wonderful tool to profile the most vulnerable houses to target? Hmm, nice way to find those undisclosed parks where kiddos may be innocently playing conveniently next to a fast getaway.. Horrible to think like that but technology can be used for evil too. Think about that you Big Brother apologizers.

Mr Jacobs comments (boasts?) about the desirability of his 'village' to criminals have now spread from the front page of the local paper to the national press and now the BBC news website blogs. Members of the criminal fraternity are no doubt thankful to Mr Jacobs for saving them the effort of (as I believe criminal slang puts its) 'walking around' finding targets.

As a non-criminal, however, I think I would judge the desireability of this area on its setting and its people.

I'm not sure that many people in Milton Keynes other than the good people/angry mob of Broughton really see the place as a quaint 'Buckinghamshire village' or 'quiet village outside Milton Keynes' as such. As a 'local' I've never really seen is as any different from the other villages and towns swallowed up as Milton Keynes has expanded.

Have a look on Google Maps - the place is sandwiched between a 'grid' dual carriageway and the A5310. Its own Parish Council website talks about 'rows of houses and grid roads appearing where there had been fields and country lanes' in the mid '90s.

Ask yourself whether you would want to live in a place whether an 'angry crowd' can block off roads at will in the middle or the day?

A picture is being painted here of a sad unhealthy community of individuals who - with appeal to the affluence or exclusivity of their 'village' - seem to want the civil law to protect their privacy whilst disregarding the criminal law's protection of the motorist.

Google are operating within the law to provide a useful service which people can opt out of. Other commenters have already made the point about our surveillance society - I generally subscribe to 'if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide' but I acknowledge my personal privacy is compromised more daily by CCTV than my personal property's 'privacy' (if such a concept is even valid) ever could be by this service.

The point about all this is the creeping stealth invasion of our privacy...

First, digital cameras give the masses the ability to digitise photos.

Second, Blogger and others give the masses the ability to self-publish that in any way that they see fit.

https://southvilleparking.blogspot.com/

Third, our mobile phones will be tracked, although of course we will be asked for our 'consent' which will no doubt be buried in Paragraph 314, subsection 4.6. 7 of the 'revised terms and conditions, which you can read on our website, at any old time..'

https://www.democraticmedia.org/current_projects/privacy/analysis/mobile_marketing/f



Now, StreetView comes along, and whilst some may not object, the point is when the cameras get too close, and we are in a 'Lives of Others' surveillance state, it will be far too late to complain, because the genie will be out of the bottle.

Of course, many people are thick enough to give away loads of information about their nearest and dearest without thinking about the consequences, just by joining Facebook.

https://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

The point is simply this - technology should be our slave, not our master, and simply dismissing people as 'luddites' because they want to retain control over how IT helps us, rather than capitulate to control by corporations, is not at all helpful.

It is time to have this debate now - in 5 yrs time the convergence of technology will have reached the point where it will not be possible to get the genie back in the bottle - and the BBC is fatally COMPROMISED on this, because they have far too close a relationship with Google. You may think it is a 'cuddly' company.

If Microsoft were to merge with it - which is nowhere near as impossible as many on this site might think - would your views about it remain the same ? So why is the BBC simply not sceptical enough about the technology we use, and asking searching enough questions about its implications ?

Scared ? Tired ? Lazy ? Industry-captured ?

As a resident of Broughton, my only issue with the Streetview images is that they will now include a derelict building yard along our road that has been left effectively unattended for almost a year (with recent bill posters for extra attractiveness!). Local councillors have promised its removal, but, surprise surprise it is still there. With Streetview it will now remain a virtual “eye sore” for years to come.

Of course the irony is that Broughton is now well and truly ‘on the map’, the action of these residents has meant that the images of their homes have been beamed across the whole country.

Thanks lads!

(Also not sure why Paul Jacobs agreed to a TV interview in front of his house, or am I missing something?)

Posted by Recognizer - Hey any of you "I've got nothing to hide" people want to post your home address here so I can come stand on a PUBLIC road and take pictures? Any takers? Probably not. Hypocrites.

But if you think what Google is doing is something that anyone can do ravenmorpheus... that's idiotic. Really, you can recreate street view all by yourself? Well I'd like to see that.

Clavering Road, Braintree, Essex, UK, there any good for you?

Well obviously I and anyone else cannot create the app but doing what the guys in the cars do is something that pretty much anyone can do, right, or is sitting in your car taking a photo a highly specialised task?

Posted by lordBeddGelert - "First, digital cameras give the masses the ability to digitise photos.

Second, Blogger and others give the masses the ability to self-publish that in any way that they see fit."

Oh dear god, heaven forbid people might use technology as it's meant to be used.

Would you rather we all went back to the Victorian era where cameras were hardly portable and required a degree to use them?

Not to mention blogs never existed.

"
The point is simply this - technology should be our slave, not our master, and simply dismissing people as 'luddites' because they want to retain control over how IT helps us, rather than capitulate to control by corporations, is not at all helpful."

I agree with this but there is a point at which you have to say "I really can't be bothered complaining about this".

Just exactly how much of an impact on peoples daily lives does Street View have, or even your daily life lordBeddGelert if your house has been photographed?

Because I'd bet that the honest answer is - no impact whatsoever.

I've yet to see an argument against Street View that is valid and claiming "breach of privacy", "human rights" and all that without something to back it up with is hardly going to win over those of us who wish to move forward and embrace technology for what it is, a tool that can be used in an innocent and helpful fashion.

CCTV surveillance by the government, now that is another matter a far more serious one, snooping on emails or internet usage, again another more serious matter, allowing a company to post pictures it has taken of streets that may or may not contain your house seems very trivial.

Perhaps google should have said "we're creating an app, we'd like you to send in your pictures", but then I guess someone could still take a photo of your house and send it in without your consent.

Oh btw road maps, they're created without your consent and have the name of the road you live on, along with directions of how to get there...

I just wish Google would update the map/satellite pictures of this North Shropshire Market Town. They are more than eight years out of date. Large new housing and industrial estates have been built and road changes made since then and an inner ring road being completed this year.

This kind of technology is only good if the information/data is updated regularly. Putting the destination into you SatNav or the street name into Google Maps will not help you to find some places in this town.

Besides which Street View isn't comprehensive, I tried to find Leeds Media Centre on Savile Mount and the Camera Car has failed to go down this and a parallel road yet it's cruised the tiny residential back streets nearby!

The battle of Broughton is not another embarrassment for Google, it is an embarrassment for Broughton and for Britain.

Our narrow-minded, sad little villagers need to get a grip on themselves and realise that there's nothing they can do about it, unless they fancy breaking the law by obstructing traffic.

in response to this comment
"that's idiotic. Really, you can recreate street view all by yourself? Well I'd like to see that." its easy to do in fact my 9 year old great nephew could do it, you take the pictures then you use some 360 degree photo software (available online) to put it all together job done. 2 other points 1} if this had happened in somewhere like Gloucester,Liverpool etc etc the group would have been arrested, so why weren't Paul Jacobs et al arrested, and 2} i've just tried to look into the bedroom windows of my neighbour and of my mate who lives in Amsterdam and i've got news for those who say you can, you can't

At the end of the day do these people complain when a police van with a camera attached goes past their house. Do they remonstrate with the police? I doubt it. They can opt out of having their homes on there so I can't see what the problem is.

I am so sick of this if you have nothing to hide attitude. As more privacy is given away the problem will only get worse. It is only a matter of time before CCTV is on every street and maybe in peoples homes? Who knows what will happen in the future. If we do not sa no to these infringements of our privacy now the people in the future will have a sad life controlled by the government. And to think we were supposed to be fighting oppression in the second world war. The terrorists have achieved what they set out to do. They have taken away our freedom via our own government.

George Orwell truly was a prophet

Well well well, I've just been reading some news articles on the internet and it looks like some people are planning a visit to take lots of pictures of Broughton (and probably publish them on the internet). As it's 100% legal to take photos of peoples houses from the street I don't know how the Broughton mob will deal with the geek mob.

Oh the irony, if they had been so foolish they wouldn't get this media attention.

What I find amusing is that Paul Jacobs has successfully reduced the longterm value of his own house as well as his neighbours.

Modern and future house buyers who are moving area are starting to/will look at streetview to see what the prospective new area looks like. Houses in areas that are in streetview are going to get more house-buyer interest because the buyers are able to see the house together with its surrounding environment.

Though rare today, this will be done by buyers more and more over the next months and years. I doubt Google will go back to Broughton for maybe 10 years by which time, being missing from streetview will mean that the area gets much less buyer attention.

Paul Jacobs short-term complaint has probably caused him a long term issue.

I really do hope the effort being put into complaining about street view carries onto the governments continued big brother approach to the way they intercept our calls and emails.

My point is, and has been all along, that people are complaining about street view when there are practical applications for every person who uses it.

The government goes on about various threats and champions the crimes it solves using the data it gathers. But ask yourself about the ratio of data held and criminals caught.

As for asking if people who aren't bothered about street view to put there address on this blog... Hardly fair to suggest it is the same as a having a photo of a street online.

Thank you Rory for a great report on this topic.

Funny as it may seem I was actually angry about this as well. Angry that this has made the news. Angry that this person has been given the time of day to air his 'opinion'. People getting quite visibly worked up about something (as stated in the reports I've seen several times) that's completely legal.

Millions of people, hundreds of thousands of properties and countless dodgy acts or risque situations have been captured around the world. If people object, they have dealt with it by having the images removed if necessary. I do not accept the main protagonist here, a self confessed google user, does not know how to report an image.

Another thing on the report I saw about it, was another 'concerned' resident, didn't even know what google really was?! Where have they been for the last 10 years?! I fear this kneejerk reaction to seeing a this vehicle on their cul de sac really smacks of idiocy, especially with all the fuss media have made over the story. If their intention was to make the news over this then Bravo. Otherwise, congratulations on having many news cameras and reporters snoop around your front lawn.

I'm actually embarassed to say I live in Milton Keynes at this moment in time. And comment #8, please let me know when you go photographing, I'll join you!

P.S It's not just google that are at it, so learn to live with it:

https://www.multimap.com/maps/?q=broughton&mkt=en-gb#map=52.05236,-0.69608|19|256&be=22145196|West&bd=useful_information&loc=GB:52.0413:-0.76092:14|milton keynes|Milton Keynes, Central Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, MK9 2

All these people will achieve is a new law forbidding people from taking photographs in the street. Own goal or what?

All this talk of complaining about Google's invasion of privacy makes me laugh. This is the UK we are talking about, one of the most highly government-sanctioned surveillance societies on the planet.

Talk about closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

READ THIS...

https://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/02/google-privacy-mobile-phone-industry

For all those [deliberately ?] misinterpreting my views, I am not, of course, against blogs and digital cameras - my point is that when these technologies are aggregated, as with mobile phones, it becomes very difficult, if not impossible to predict the consequences.

The sort of 'behavioural modelling' now used by supermarkets and banks could be used to track where you live and where you travel and link it to what you purchase to 'predict' your next purchase and offer all sorts of invasive advertising.

And from that it is a very short step indeed to 'predicting' where you might be likely to commit a crime next - and other apps which can't as yet be predicted. This has to be the subject of far more scrutiny by the Information Commissioner - right now !!

I love how Paul Jacobs brought up the issue of burglaries like somehow it was Google's fault, except they happened BEFORE the streetview car went around, and his moaning about how he doesn't want the world to see his "affluent home and area", makes him and the rest of his village all the bigger target.

Seriously, some people need to think things through first. If I was a neighbour of his, I would be extremely annoyed at the mass of publicity he has just created all for the sake of his opinion and his ridiculous excuse for complaining.

Thanks MKMiddleIncome, with your directions I was able to get the right Broughton on Microsoft Live Maps. Using the Birds Eye view you get some lovely closeups of the back gardens and all those conservatories that someone could break in through. Not sure when Birds Eye View went live round there, but round here it was about a year ago. Maybe that explains the robberies?

Oh, and is Mr Jacobs going to vet the owners of the new houses round there just in case some low income types who may be theives move in?

I think you'll actually find that you do own the image rights to your home. As a professional photographer I cannot make money from an image of that pretty cottage down the road without the owners permission. I would be breaching copyright if I did so. The only exceptions are public buildings and images used in news reports. If I took a photo of you it would be the same. If I took a photo of your children you could get me in real trouble. Paparazzi get around that be saying it's news.

Image copyright is a very complicated area.

As long as Google do not make a single penny of money from the images they are fine, the moment that happens they'll find a huge lawsuit hits them.

And of course the difference between this and security cameras is 1) I can't access any of those security cameras to check you out, in fact there are laws preventing that, 2) most security cameras aren't actually working or the images ever watched or clear enough to be of any use, 3) no one who does have access could actually give a toss about you.

Google takes that a step further and puts that information out there for everyone, one of which might well be interested in you. Several are just people who are anal and nosy enough to look – and looked at Broughton after reading this, and perhaps made pointless statements about going there and taking photos which would make their lives really worthwhile.

For what purpose does Google do this? Not to make money as I've said. For future generations? Then store away the images until they come along. To allow people to go on tours from the discomfort of their monitors? Well there are numbnutted people who would do that and probably enjoy it just as there are numbnutted people reading this instead of doing something worthwhile, there are others who it would save having to go to the place and so they'd have more time to sit in front of monitors, good for those few. To try and look innovative in a world full of morons because they have a big pile of cash they have to do something with? Ah...

What is the problem with the people of Broughton? They don't like people taking photos of their houses. So don't take photos of their houses. Are you seriously demanding to see them? Is that worth your time? You didn't care about seeing them before, you'd have gone there if it was important to you. Compared to you lot, they suddenly seem quite sane.

These are not people protesting over their privacy rights, they are people who just want to draw attention to themselves.

They know that al they have to do is request that their property is blocked out but would rathe make a scene in order to get in the papers.

And look, thanks to our licence fee being wasted on reporting these idiots they have succeeded.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

As more privacy is given away the problem will only get worse. It is only a matter of time before CCTV is on every street

--------

I dont do anything illegal on the street or anywhere else. These camera are thee to stop crime and by and large they do a decent job.

36. At 9:56pm on 03 Apr 2009, lordBeddGelert wrote:

READ THIS...

https://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/02/google-privacy-mobile-phone-industry

For all those [deliberately ?] misinterpreting my views, I am not, of course, against blogs and digital cameras - my point is that when these technologies are aggregated, as with mobile phones, it becomes very difficult, if not impossible to predict the consequences.

The sort of 'behavioural modelling' now used by supermarkets and banks could be used to track where you live and where you travel and link it to what you purchase to 'predict' your next purchase and offer all sorts of invasive advertising.

And from that it is a very short step indeed to 'predicting' where you might be likely to commit a crime next - and other apps which can't as yet be predicted. This has to be the subject of far more scrutiny by the Information Commissioner - right now !!

Oh yes more scaremongering by those afraid of the future and what it holds where technology is concerned.

Rory did a piece on location aware services and apps and the general consensus (aside from the financial cost to the user imo) was that these services are quite handy iirc.

You've been watching to many Tom Cruise sci-fi movies lordBeddGelert when it comes to "predicting crimes", and quite frankly if you're not committing a crime or planning to I don't see a problem, and if you're worried about being unfairly accused then that is what we have a legal system for. There won't be any more wrong convictions in the future than there are now, there might even be more correct convictions.

In the 50s and 60s we were told that we'd be living on the moon, mars even, holidaying in space, have robots in the home to do our cleaning etc. came true didn't it? The same can be said of the scaremongering being done over digital information and technology, I don't like my data being stored somewhere on a server either but we cannot get away from that being the case and the "worst case scenario" hasn't as yet and probably will never happen.

You know there is a simple answer to this - if you don't like how technology is being used don't use it, Works for the Amish in the US, after all data gathering and tracking like location aware apps on mobiles require that you use the technology does it not?

Mr Jacobs and co. would do well to go out into the wider world once in their life time and just see how beneficial to their lives technology and the internet can really be before they start complaining about people taking photos of their homes and posting them on the www.

Just want to add (because my comment was slightly unclear and possibly inaccurate) that whilst some people have "robots" in the home and we have a few "space tourists" it's not the utopian vision that we were all promised in the 50s/60s and thus the bleak Orwellian future that "rights campaigners" and people such as lordBeddGelert are so worried about probably will never happen, certainly not to the extent they fear it will...

as a resident of broughton, please don't tar us all with the same brush as Mr Jacobs.

I have no problem with google going down my road, unfortunately as the whole estate was built in the last year it does not appear on any maps anyway!

for any potential burgular surely the satelite images from google earth are much more useful than photos of the street. i have never heard any complaints about them.

@39, Hrolfitude:

You are right that you can't take a photo of someone's house for profit without the owner's consent. However, that's irrelevant here, because the houses are not the target of the photographs. One photograph with one house filling the frame is a photograph of that house - the house is the object of the photo. However, if you were to take a landscape scenery photo that included a house or houses, that is different - the scenery is the object of the photo, not the house/s. This is what Google is doing - it is the streets that are being photographed, not the houses. The houses are captured as part of the street if they are visible from the street.

Many people say Google is taking pictures of their houses, but that is simply not true - Google is taking pictures of streets, which may or may not include houses that are visible from the street. If your house is visible from the street, how is that Google's fault?

As for Paul Jacobs, I don't see how telling the world that his street is a soft, lucrative target for thieves is going to help him. Or how having video of his house on the TV and internet news is going to reduce the amount of 'ways into and out of' his home. And if he was so concerned about his privacy, why didn't he ask Google to remove the images of his street from its aerial photographs, and why not write to Google *when the StreetView project was announced*?

If this was a genuine attempt to secure privacy for his street, it has backfired spectacularly. Every criminal now knows exactly where he lives, what his house looks like, how to get in and out, and that there have been several burglaries already and that the residents don't take very good security precautions. And Google's Streetview images of his street won't be online for months yet!

If I were a local resident, I would be demanding Mr Jacobs finds somewhere else to live after this idiotic and self-defeating publicity stunt.

There are some astonishingly hard-of-thinking people here who simply don't understand that having a brain and thinking capacity does not equate with being a luddite...

Algenon iii - "Well well well, I've just been reading some news articles on the internet and it looks like some people are planning a visit to take lots of pictures of Broughton (and probably publish them on the internet). As it's 100% legal to take photos of peoples houses from the street I don't know how the Broughton mob will deal with the geek mob."

CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS LEGAL DOES NOT MAKE IT DESIRABLE ??? It is legal to annoy the heck out of your fellow travellers on the train by playing loud music and swearing - but such behaviour is rude, antisocial and discourteous - and hence undesirable !!!

happy_red "Our narrow-minded, sad little villagers need to get a grip on themselves and realise that there's nothing they can do about it, unless they fancy breaking the law by obstructing traffic."

YOU MAY NOT AGREE WITH THEM but that is not the point !!! If it was just down to a 'democratic vote' the thick masses would always vote for prurient exposure against the one vote of Max Mosley - but that does not make it right or indeed legal !!

ravenmorpheus "You've been watching to many Tom Cruise sci-fi movies lordBeddGelert when it comes to "predicting crimes", " It is nothing to do with Tom Cruise, more with Tony Blair and his plans to 'intervene' in the lives of kids who were thought to be more at risk of crime.

markus---- "in response to this comment
"that's idiotic. Really, you can recreate street view all by yourself? Well I'd like to see that." its easy to do in fact my 9 year old great nephew could do it" - This is the typical 'geek' view that everyone else does spend their entire life using a computer, and that EVERYONE has one - this is simply not the case, many people choose not to spend their entire time online - it is they who 'have a life'...

As for the Streisand effect, well that is a recipe for saying 'sheep-like' "Well let us not complain about anything and just capitulate to the surveillance state - these people in Broughton have made a stand for something far more important and less transient than 'house prices' - the right to some privacy.

Others here dismiss their views and want them to be steamrollered by the views of the majority by dismissing them as 'sad' or 'narrow-minded' or telling them to 'get a life'. Where I come from that is known as MOB RULE...

"You know there is a simple answer to this - if you don't like how technology is being used don't use it, Works for the Amish in the US, after all data gathering and tracking like location aware apps on mobiles require that you use the technology does it not?"

I have seen some fatuous arguments on this blog, but this really does take the biscuit.

I can CHOOSE not to use technology but I CANNOT CHOOSE whether the Google Street View car comes down my street - which is the whole point of this blog post !!!

You seem to say that it is up to us to tell Google to remove the pictures of people's homes. This is where you show your bias and ass-u-me ignorance that everyone is online, all the time. Maybe you are stuck in an office all day and so don't realise that outside of lunchtimes and rush-hour there are a whole raft of young mums, children and pensioners who have better things to do than spend their days glued to a PC.

They may not want the inconvenience of having to tell Google to remove their home from Street View [which is locking the stable door after the horse has bolted in any instance] and would prefer their consent, even just implied consent, BEFORE their privacy is invaded.

Many people would like to be on StreetView, but let it be an informed CHOICE not a 'fait accompli' over which we have no control.

Normally someone concerned about privacy would be able to effectively guarantee this by erecting a 6ft fence or hedge. There doesn't see to be any debate about the fact that the Google cameras operate higher than this?

these people need to shut up and get a life. I'd be embarrased if I had nothing better to spend my time doing other than complaining about this.

They're not zooming into people's windows and back gardens, what a load of rubbish!

If people are that concerned with normal, real people seeing their front door, they should put up massive black boards all around their house and also around themselves whenever they set foot out of their North Korea style private existence!

Dear Mr Google,

What's the point using gallons of precious hydrocarbons to take snaps of peoples' homes in out of the way locations.

You can afford the exercise, sure but WHY?

Post 47 says:

"Others here dismiss their views and want them to be steamrollered by the views of the majority by dismissing them as 'sad' or 'narrow-minded' or telling them to 'get a life'. Where I come from that is known as MOB RULE..."

Well, where I come from (Great Britain) this is known as DEMOCRACY.

In post 48, the same poster says not everyone has access to the internet. True, some people choose not to use it (we all can access it via libraries, phones, internet cafes, phone booths, work, school, university, college, friends, etc.) But then again, not everyone can read or write. So if Google offers a postal service where you can write in to have your house removed from Streetview, I'm sure the poster will be outraged that "not everyone can write a letter!".

To this poster, I ask: did you make this much fuss about the aerial photography of your house? If not, why not? The issue here is 'security', and aerial photographs are very useful in planning routes in/out, and spotting roof access. Could it be that you didn't see it as an opportunity for self-publicity?

49. At 11:21am on 04 Apr 2009, surreyjones wrote:

"Normally someone concerned about privacy would be able to effectively guarantee this by erecting a 6ft fence or hedge. There doesn't see to be any debate about the fact that the Google cameras operate higher than this?"

If you look at the images already online, you will see that the lower part of the images are blurred out because that's where the Google vehicle is. If the cameras were lower, more detail would be lost - anything under the height of the car would be lost if the cameras were directly on the roof, for example, rendering the service nearly useless. Also, the cameras need to be able to see over vans, other cars, etc, as well as be out of reach of people trying to damage the cameras (which is illegal, of course, but that never stops people).

The only way to do the project is to have cameras at this height. I'm sure Google would have loved to have them lower, since it must cause mechanical difficulties having this equipment so high (the weight balance of the car will be significantly affected), and it can't be easy to drive these cars. Plus, the drivers have to maintain this equipment and on health-and-safety regulations alone, Google would not put people at risk from heights unless it was strictly necessary.

So there you go, Surreyjones - the reasons (that I can think of off the top of my head) why Google cameras are the height they are.

I thought the entire story was funny, the posts even funnier!.

Google are doing nothing wrong, it is not the Daily Mail as one poster claimed who are making a fuss about this non story, it is instead the left-wing BBC and its partner in crime the Guardian who have devoted more space than any of the right wing papers.

Lordbeddgelert, keep up the defence, I red your posts, and actually you are the one trying to discredit other views, saying that, I admire your attempts to smear anyone who disagrees with your views. Have you thought about a career in the Labour party?.

Posted by Lordbeddgelert -

"You seem to say that it is up to us to tell Google to remove the pictures of people's homes. This is where you show your bias and ass-u-me ignorance that everyone is online, all the time. Maybe you are stuck in an office all day and so don't realise that outside of lunchtimes and rush-hour there are a whole raft of young mums, children and pensioners who have better things to do than spend their days glued to a PC.

They may not want the inconvenience of having to tell Google to remove their home from Street View [which is locking the stable door after the horse has bolted in any instance] and would prefer their consent, even just implied consent, BEFORE their privacy is invaded.

Many people would like to be on StreetView, but let it be an informed CHOICE not a 'fait accompli' over which we have no control. "

Oooh thank you for spelling assume for me, I didn't know how to spell that.

As for assuming ignorance of the fact that people have other things to do other than being stuck to a PC, you're very wrong on that.

Outside of my office job I know full well that people don't sit in front of a PC all day every day, how? Because I don't when I'm off work.

I'm sure we all do things other than being in front of a PC but as has been mentioned people have access to the internet one way or another and there is also a postal service.

And you don't seem to have an answer to the issue of privacy where the aerial photos for Google maps, or any other mapping service is concerned. And there are a number of things you are not consulted about for your consent, people like youself and Mr Jacobs don't seem to be too bothered about them, or at least don't protest as much, perhaps Google is the straw that broke the camels back, but the camels are in the minority in this case because the majority of people don't mind Street View being there.

Also there is far more information held on the internet relating to yourself that can be used to abuse your human rights/privacy/security than images of streets used by Google.

I would suggest that persons like yourself don't have a lot to do, other than worry about the erosion of your rights. People like yourself, Liberty and other such groups who campaign for "rights" and all that have led to a society where criminals can practically get away with murder, and victims have very little rights.

You wish to be so outraged about the erosion of your rights, pick a better thing to be outraged at, Street View is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Up till now I had never used Streetview nor had I heard of Broughton. Now I have done both and my conclusion : Streetview is ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE and Broughton is very dull.

It kinda irritates when a few self important people - from some random village I never even knew existed before all this fuss - attempt to sabotage this useful and fun free service from Google; a service which is only useful because of its universality? Notwithstanding the fuss over this story - which the villagers themselves engineered - what ever made the locals of Broughton think the rest of the world give two hoots about them and their pompous little lives?

These people are just being middle England reactionaries. Burglars would not use the street view as it doesn't show escape routes etc, its the satellite view which provides the high tech robber with far more information. The street view is pretty rubbish really but I really cannot see the point of it outside the major cities but Google has a plan no doubt.

I see they intend to resurrect the neighbourhood watch scheme, that might help as they may actually know who their neighbours are.

Someone mentioned Google should offer a postal service are they having a laugh is it 1929 0r 2009?

"Is Google Streetview invasive and creepy? Well, maybe a little. It's also a fascinating, and potentially invaluable source of social information for future generations. But it is most definitely not peeking through your (or anyone else's) curtains, and it is absolutely the wrong stalking-horse to be getting worried about. If you want to object to something, please, in the name of all sanity, object to the rise of our Surveillance State."

In one breath you refute yourself. These people are objecting to being SURVEILLED BY GOOGLE and you object that they should only object to being SURVEILLED BY THE STATE. If SURVEILLANCE SUCKS, IT SUCKS no matter who does it.

People SAID they were having the interiors of their houses (seen through the windows) scanned - if that is not "peeking through curtains", is it just "incidental awareness"?

Who else goes around taking such pictures? And the worst thing is so many people giving Google the benefit of the doubt. You wouldn't put up with this if WAL*MART did it, so how did they make you silly enough to presume that Google has any better ETHICS?

GOOGLE USES AN ARMY OF LAWYERS TO PRESS THEIR WAY INTO ANYTHING THEY WANT TO ACCESS. According to Google, in essence, you HAVE NO RIGHT TO PRIVACY. Just because they aren't inventorying genitals YET doesn't mean they won't WISH TO IN FUTURE, and by then we will have acquiesced to privacylessness to the point where no further intrusions could matter.

The people of Broughton should be congratulated for standing up to a nonsense Corporation. Perhaps the maps Google is trying to create would be "terribly useful". But that would be so only if we (the people) and not Google controlled what was available. Browbeating people for "not going along" says "hey - who needs rights anyway? we don't use them so you should quit too." For SHAME, for SHAME.

Tell me why the people of the world should "go along" with a nasty corporation that puts people IN PRISON IN CHINA. See my remarks about Google in a letter to SF Mayor Gavin Newsom at https://dumpgoogle.com. Google is a FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION and that says all we need to hear about whether what Google does now will really be in our long-term interests. Let them collect the data ONLY IF THEY WISH TO BE NATIONALIZED. Brin and Page MADE GOOGLE EVIL BY INCORPORATING IT; their slogan (do no evil) is as hollow as the profit motive.

Try this one on for size: our American company Google has the right to document anything about your lives they wish to. You can't stop them. Not only would that be wrong (they have more rights than you) but it would be counterproductive to the process of Globalization under which we will all become corporate slaves, and that can't be permitted. But Resistance is futile, so the people of Brougton should just give up, and bend over ready to receive. Haw Haw.

Now are you ready to be a patriot for your country and fellow countrymen?

MarkyBish: "It kinda irritates when a few self important people - from some random village I never even knew existed before all this fuss - attempt to sabotage this useful and fun free service from Google; a service which is only useful because of its universality?"

I thought the self-important people were the Executives at Google who decided that _anyone's_ privacy can be violated because they've decided so.

"Notwithstanding the fuss over this story - which the villagers themselves engineered - what ever made the locals of Broughton think the rest of the world give two hoots about them and their pompous little lives?"

Engineered? Broughtons said NO; who made that NEWS? The NEWS MEDIA.

(who give a hoot:) Well then Broughton can tell Google "don't bother with our town" and nobody would care. And that should be fine with you.

I am AMAZED at the volume of dismissal of Broughton's concerns. As I said earlier, who has made you STUPID enough to IGNORE CONCERNS about the behavior of a TRANSNATIONAL FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION? These people are IN IT FOR THE MONEY, and that means that in five years if they decide to "CHANGE THEIR POLICY" and ABROGATE all the protections they promised earlier, THEY CAN DO SO and YOU and ALL THE REST OF US are left holding the bag of having been raped and betrayed. They'll have our data and no one of us will have the money to stop Google from doing WHATEVER THEY WANT WITH IT.

Moreover: I HATE COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING. Don't you? Or are you again made so silly that you can imagine NO OTHER WAY for a society to function? And ALL that Google wants is to DOMINATE and CONTROL ALL ADVERTISING EVERYWHERE, including PASTING ADS ANYWHERE THEY CAN SUBORN with the promise of "cash". Once they bought YouTube, their ads starting creeping up over the video you tuned in to watch. I want a BETTER YouTube THAN THAT but I guess I and all the rest of us have to be disappointed (because WE are not multibillionaires.)

So: THIS is the corporation that you TRUST WITH YOUR DATA? I THINK NOT.

There are MUCH BETTER REASONS to STAND BEHIND BROUGHTON than the "just go along with it" crowd has the first clue about - and again I say SHAME on anyone who argues AGAINST PEOPLE FOR A CORPORATION. We are not OBJECTS for CORPORATE PREDATION - but MANY posters here are MOUTHPIECES FOR EXACTLY THAT POINT OF VIEW. Please see yourself doing that and STOP IT.

Posted by berkeleydynamic - "Tell me why the people of the world should "go along" with a nasty corporation that puts people IN PRISON IN CHINA."

And just exactly how many other American companies have done wrong in various countries across the world?

Google is not at fault for complying with local/regional laws, the persons at fault in the case which you are hinting at are the Chinese government.

"Just because they aren't inventorying genitals YET doesn't mean they won't WISH TO IN FUTURE, and by then we will have acquiesced to privacylessness to the point where no further intrusions could matter."

Yeah because that will really happen, we've had your kind of argument going on for decades now, and still those kinds of argument have not come anywhere near happening.

It's funny how people like yourself were not there when Google was mapping the world from the air, which is just as invasive if you believe that your right to privacy is being eroded.

The pictures on Street View are out of date as soon as they are taken.

The only people that have any reason to be afraid are those that do not wish to be found, usually because they are either criminals or are trying to avoid people that caused them harm in the past and the chances of people actually being "found" by people looking on Street View is quite small I would imagine.

If you are worried about your privacy google, will remove any pictures you request to be removed and have already done so in many cases, so how does that balance with your "According to Google, in essence, you HAVE NO RIGHT TO PRIVACY" statement?

"Try this one on for size: our American company Google has the right to document anything about your lives they wish to."

Same as any government around the world already does then, so what's your point?

I seriously would suggest that persons like yourself and those from Broughton should go sit in a cave and hide from the world if your that bothered about your privacy, meanwhile the rest of us who can see that Google are doing nothing wrong will carry on with life just fine without your scaremongering.

So far all people like yourself have achieved in the decades you've all been "campaigning" is the creation of a climate of fear, which neither addresses the problem of right to privacy being eroded nor helps people understand what is going on around them with regards to surveillance.

But I guess that's the way all forms of control work, whether it be by the state or other groups within countries who wish to control the population for their own ends.

Of course we all know the real reason for the outburst of outrage by the residents of Broughton, they wanted their 15 minutes of fame, guess they felt left out, what with the death of Ms Goody, the G20 protests and other such headline grabbing people getting airtime...

ravenmorpheus: "You wish to be so outraged about the erosion of your rights, pick a better thing to be outraged at, Street View is nothing in the grand scheme of things."

Why is not the Broughton Protest an original act of defiance? (Some of them) decided to draw a line: "we tolerated it up til now, but this goes too far." When you stand up against an ediface, any act of defiance is useful, including the FIRST.

Of course you are right: what people in America, and other places corporately propagandized, should do, is confront the laws that grant corporations the entitlements of the living. In essence the fight should be to closely REGULATE the activities of such as Google if we permit them at all. But I do not hear the call for such action from you; instead all I really hear is "shut up", and that sorely misses the points being made in this incident.

Yes, let us CHANGE THE LAWS so that when BigGreedProfitCo decides to sashay up your street snapping photographs of you, it will because they have the PERMISSION OF THE PEOPLE OF THE TOWN CONCERNED, wouldn't that be REFRESHING.

Try INFORMED CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED - has a nice ring to it even today.

It should be news when a town ACQUIESCES to a corporation - not RESISTS one.

@berkeleydynamic -

"instead all I really hear is "shut up", and that sorely misses the points being made in this incident."

Yes perhaps that's because the majority of people are sick and tired of hearing from people like yourselves about how we can change the world.

When it comes down to it, it never works. Did Tiananmen Square achieve anything in China?

No.

Have the G20 protests achieved anything, aside from smashing the windows and nearly setting light to the RBS offices?

No.

Do any other similar protests achieve anything?

No.

When people like Mr Jacobs in Broughton stand up and complain about something which to most is trivial it does not help theirs and your righteous cause of protecting your rights and those of others, perhaps if he was standing up to the way our MPs here in the UK are claiming second homes on their expenses accounts by taking direct action against such MPs then people might not be saying "shut up", because that in many peoples views is a more worthy cause to be fighting.

Googles street view does not impinge on anyones privacy as far as the majority are concerned, purely because most people are not bothered because it has no impact on their daily lives and they have more important things to consider, like how they can earn enough money to pay their bills.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

ravenmorpheus: "Yeah because that will really happen, we've had your kind of argument going on for decades now, and still those kinds of argument have not come anywhere near happening."

In EIGHT SHORT YEARS, America Very Nearly became an AUTHORITARIAN STATE. Eight years is not a long time. Who would that state have served? BUSINESS INTERESTS. Let's go around the world extorting resources with military force and threats, export our socioeconomic system at the end of the barrel of a gun, and put in jail anyone who disgrees that this is the way a society should run.

Corporation X buys corporation Y. (Google buys YouTube, or Murdoch buys ...) and then corporation X, now the "new owner", can tear up all the protections that Y offered its users. I already noted that YouTube is now supersaturated with Google ads when it wasn't before; and their USER POLICIES CHANGED. They can do that in _one second_ with the stroke of a pen.

Your faith in YOUR friends (the corporations) will be OUR undoing.

Yeah whatever. I don't like corporations either, I'm as against capitalism and the globalisation in the world as the next anarchist. Mostly because I always end up being financially disadvantaged, but I have more important things to consider than my privacy being breached by a corporation posting a picture of the street where I live that happens to have my house in it, like how I can earn enough money to pay my bills, a concern that most people have and pay more attention to because if they don't that will be their undoing.

If you're that concerned my American friend why did you not run for president? You might have given Obama a run for his money...

ravenmorpheus: "Googles street view does not impinge on anyones privacy as far as the majority are concerned."

You aren't even making cogent points anymore. You claim to SPEAK for the "MAJORITY" and yet no polls have been taken, help yourself to telling us what other people think, then. The majority used to believe in a Geocentric universe because they were TOLD TO; we know how useful a "majority" opinion is.

Let the people who take the poll also be questioned about their RESEARCH INTO THE ISSUES. I suspect that people who PAY ATTENTION will much less disposed to "trust" corporations than those who do not.

You are as much as saying that any resistance to 'Globalization' and so forth is useless. But you don't finish your thought: you're supposed to CONCLUDE for us that any attempt to control our circumstances is doomed, and therefore (whatever) - give up, take it, etc. Evidently self-defense is to be discouraged!

You complain that Broughtons aren't pushing YOUR issue: "the way our MPs here in the UK are claiming second homes on their expenses accounts." You then say that Broughtons' complaints about Google are invalid but your complaint about the Broughton's complaint IS valid because they didn't back you! How in the world do you know how many people in Broughton are UPSET about the same things you are? Yet you WITHOUT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE say they DID NOTHING. What I see is they can expect no support FROM you - so in your vicious worldview I suggest that their (claimed by you) attitude of not caring about your MP issue is THE SAME BACK AT YOU. MAYBE if you tried a communitarian approach - and realized that not every single person has to focus on the SAME issues at all times - you would see that if you ASSISTED BROUGHTON, they might ASSIST YOU BACK as it were.

The phrase is "think and chew gum at the same time." Why would you so blithely assert that if Broughtons are complaining about this, they ARE CONCERNED FOR NOTHING ELSE? Do you think if you interviewed ANYONE in Broughton you could find a person who COULD NOT NAME more than one social issue they're concerned with?

Dude: I have no patience to keep defending Broughtons against people who either have no capacity for empathy or no wish to use it. We can inventory our problems and assign them priorities. But to complain about Broughton's complaints is just really - selfish and thoughtless. There are arguments for both sides, but you don't seem to wish to acknowledge this.

ravenmorpheus:
(quote)

When it comes down to it, it never works. Did Tiananmen Square achieve anything in China?

No.

Have the G20 protests achieved anything, aside from smashing the windows and nearly setting light to the RBS offices?

No.

Do any other similar protests achieve anything?

No.

(endquote)

People worldwide know what "TienAnMen" refers to, don't they? The people who participated in China well remember. AW GOSH THEY DIDN'T WIN THE FIRST TIME LET'S JUST GIVE UP. {really: what point are you trying to make, because I can't see anything meaningful coming out of your depressed stance. This didn't work ... so? (a) should never have tried, (b) should give up now, (c) should try harder next time. You seem to be the champion of either (a) or (b), yet (c) remains an option. What's _your_ problem? Who beat _you_ up? Who's cowed _you_ into submission?}

The G20 protests involved the people who were involved. You might not have gotten anything out of that, but they did. The WORLD remembers the protests in SEATTLE. Of course, your corporate-dominated media make sure to tell you EVERYTHING the people protest about, don't they? I mean, I'm sure the corporate media give the anticorporate protesters EQUAL ACCESS - of course! They got their full message across so the rest of us could understand the issues involved. Sure! And that's why people like you are as informed as you are about popular movements all over the world.

Did any similar protests achieve anything? HOW ABOUT LOOKING AT THE HISTORY OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN THE USA. You and I can have exchanges online on a Sunday BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE TO WORK ON WEEKENDS. We can have exchanges in the evening because THE WORK WEEK IS LIMITED TO 40 HOURS. And even if I WANTED to send my CHILD to SALT MINES, I could not because CHILD LABOR IS ILLEGAL.

And you say "protests have given us nothing?"

I would say that's what they want you to think.

ravenmorpheus: "I don't like corporations either, I'm as against capitalism and the globalisation in the world as the next anarchist."

Then take a hint: when people are fighting for their rights against a CORPORATION, DO NOT TAKE the corporation's side. Do not minimize or trivialize their actions. Remember that the battle is everywhere, and every act of defiance or resistance is a meaningful act even if there is little to be achieved.

Whatever Google is doing with Earth mapping can be done by an international agency, and I would rather that was the case. Google is USING YOU against YOUR FELLOWS, don't you see? They pretend the earth-mapping thing will be better than sex, so that "everyone has to unquestioningly want it." Well, that's Bull****. I can want it all day long and still say "BUT NO CORPORATION CAN BE ENTRUSTED" and it makes perfect sense. The answer is the expropriation of the technology into the hands of people that we at least get to elect.

It's real simple. I haven't counted but it seems to me that comments here are about 3:1 AGAINST Broughton. Is Google BETTER THAN Broughton? I tried to make that point: is GOOGLE BETTER / MORE DESERVING THAN THE PEOPLE OF YOUR TOWN? (any town.) YES OR NO.

You want what Google provides and badmouth your fellow countrymen when they resist a corporation. You and the other pro-Google posters should sit down and wonder how you got to the point of calling other Brits vacuous and stupid only because they didn't want to bend over for Google. Should we see you want what Google provides more than caring for the CONCERNS OF YOUR OWN CITIZENS? What an excellent job of suckering the public Google has done, then. Who cares about COMMUNITY when I can have this TECHNOLOGICAL TOY?

They HAVE divided us and they HAVE conquered us if they can set half of us upon the other half who are just defending THEMSELVES.

Call yourself a SOCIALIST and get that over with. And then JOIN A SOCIALIST ACTION GROUP. Then maybe you won't feel so isolated and ineffectual.

Posted by berkeleydynamic -

"You and I can have exchanges online on a Sunday BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE TO WORK ON WEEKENDS. We can have exchanges in the evening because THE WORK WEEK IS LIMITED TO 40 HOURS."

Really, while that may be the case in parts of the US perhaps you would care to explain why I am here in the UK at work on a Sunday (and posting between phone calls) and why I work 48hrs over 7 days (on a 3 on 3 off 12hr shift basis) to make ends meet?

And if you take a look at your local area I'd bet you will find many people in similar situations, not everywhere is like affluent urban America.

And yeah perhaps protestors should be trying harder, lets see how many more protestors (and innocent bystanders) get injured or killed before there is a MAJOR change in the way the world is run shall we.

Perhaps we should have a WW3, see who comes out on top and see who ends up running who?

People promise change, people band about the rhetoric you're coming out with, but at the end of the day when they get "into power" or when things "change" they become the same as those they "campaigned" against, at least the past would indicate that is the case.

And quite frankly I don't care about the petty complaints of a bunch of middle-Englanders in a little town/village and I don't suppose many other people here in the UK do because we all have lives to live and we get on just fine without worrying about whether or not Google is taking photos of our streets that may show our houses without our consent.

As I have said people have more important things to consider and thus Google taking photos of their street, which coincidentally may contain photos of their houses is rather low on their list of priorities, because if it is not, they end up not concentrating on things that they need to, like paying the bills.

Mr Jacob and co. didn't seem bothered about the invasion of privacy by the mass media did they? But I suppose you would explain that as a pre-meditated attempt at using the media to highlight how they are being so unfairly inconvenienced.

I've yet to see a convincing argument for how people like those in Broughton are inconvenienced on a regular basis by Street View having pictures of their street which may show their houses and it is quite convenient that they don't complain if it's is someone elses street/town that is being photographed. We have a term here in the UK for people like that - NIMBY.

And about your point about Google being more deserving or not, no they are not more deserving or less for that matter, but they were not the ones making complaints or taking unnecessary direct action.

I personally am neither for or against Google, I'm not against people making protests per se either, but people need to protest against something a bit more important than Street View if they want to come across as even remotely credible.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I can't believe that this debate is still ongoing considering the legislation that forces ISPs to hold onto your internet browsing history etc.

The government have claimed that this will help fight crime and have even used the American governments line of helping to improve national security.

So let me ask you is street view as relevant and will it have the effect that people are suggesting it will have. Your local council can even request access to data to fight crime.

Street view or local councils fighting crime? I know which one I care about and, of course, which one I think is being oer-hyped.

"they're always shot from the public highway"

No they are not. After 17 complaints Google removed a series of images which were taken by their car which had driven off the public road, into my shared private car park, past a sign saying "Private".

I'm the internet savvy person in the neighbourhood who found these images and worked out how to report them, but my neighbours (elderly, busy mums, hard working fathers) were equally affected and similarly offended against. When I showed them, they were appalled.

Presumed consent unless a complaint is received is so clearly wrong. Many people are not in a position to complain, because they lack access, or because they lack internet skills, and cannot navigate the internet to find and report Street View violations, even those under the lax conditions imposed by the ICO.

Sheer foolishness of the hightes order. He is a Nimby. I'm astounded in a world wit real problems these selfish toffs are given any attention at all. Go on Google - Sue him ! PLEASE

"Its not like google are doing anything the average person cannot".

Actually they are. The average person cannot photograph every single inch of every street in London, Oxford, etc and display them all in a searcheable and browseable on the world's most popular website. The point is, its not just about taking the photo, its what is being done with it.

Oh I agree google has the legal right to do this. But ts legal to sell machine guns to 3rd world governments. Its legal for airlines to charge you to have a pee on the flight. That doesn't make it right or appropriate.

Anyone who thinks Google are a corporation which is 'cuddly' and 'do no evil' really really need to read 'The Corporation' by Joel Bakan and 'No Logo' by Naomi Klein.

The corporation exists solely to make profit, and however much they say 'do no evil', they don't understand concepts like ethics and human rights, because they are 'human' and the corporation is 'non-human'. It is not 'immoral', but simply 'amoral'. If any activity doesn't generate revenue in some they would not or should not be doing it. They are merely 'slaves to the shareholders'.

So just as marketing companies invade every area of our lives with advertising, so that it is almost impossible to escape them, even if we wanted to, it will soon be similarly impossible to escape surveillance by Google.

You may be happy with that - but what will happen when we no longer have any choice in the matter, and have moved so far down the road that we will not be able to turn them back, and because of their huge wealth will be able to influence the legislation on privacy passed by government ??

Wake up and smell the coffee - just because Google and Apple have 'cool and cuddly' images doesn't mean they are any different from the monopolistic behemoths like Tesco, Wal-Mart and Microsoft. And any day now they could be owned not by the employees, but by 'hedge funds' wanting to flip a quick profit.

And if that is by putting virtual ad hoardings on the image of YOUR HOUSE on street view promoting alcohol or adult entertainment they would be able to do so without a 'by-your-leave' to you or your loved ones.

You can call the people of Broughton 'little englanders' or whatever you like. The truth is that they may just have more foresight, intelligence and better adapted critical faculties than the unblinking 'all technology is good technology' uncritical drones who are the cheerleaders of the IT industry.

Very heated subject - What I really don't understand is why did Google want to do this in the first place ?? I don't see any extra advertising etc. yet......

But nothing is done online 'just for users' so what do Google really have in mind. I have not yet read any article that can tell me this.

I guess this is really so that Google maps can become the new version of an interractive A-Z / Yellow Pages.

AND/OR as the basis for a new On-Line Estate Agents :)

They will now monopolise that specialist area on the web now just like they have done competing against longer standing Search engines and then by stealing over 50% of ALL online Advertising revenues.

Is it just me, or is it that every time I see one of those comments "removed by the moderators", I *really* want to know what it says!

@77. At 12:49pm on 06 Apr 2009, lordBeddGelert wrote:

"You can call the people of Broughton 'little englanders' or whatever you like. The truth is that they may just have more foresight, intelligence and better adapted critical faculties than the unblinking 'all technology is good technology' uncritical drones who are the cheerleaders of the IT industry."

You are missing the point of the protest! They weren't standing up against the rise of technology - there was no foresight being exercised, no intellegince and no critical thinking! It was purely because *THEY FEAR BURGLARS WILL USE STREETVIEW TO BURGAL THEM*. That is it. If they had foresight, they would have asked Google not to do the street in the first place. If they had intelligence, they would not have advertised their street as a soft target, and would have realised that *THE AERIAL VIEWS ARE MORE VALUABLE TO BURGLARS*. If it was about the technology, Jacobs wouldn't have admitted he uses Google maps himself.

All these people did - apart from self-defeating self-publicity - was to illegally prevent a low-paid worker from doing his job. Workers have rights in this country - the right to work without intimidation and from being prevented from working by an angry mob. Doesn't anyone realise that *GOOGLE COULD PROSECUTE THESE IDIOTS BUT CHOSE NOT TO?*

And please stop using the phrase "surveillance" in reference to Street View - a photograph does not constitute surveillance, which is defined as a watch being kept on people or things. Many people seem to think that a car driving past taking a photo means that there will be live streaming images of their house from now on. This is technology we're talking about, not magic - it's not Google's fault if you don't know the difference.

@78. At 1:18pm on 06 Apr 2009, WaveyDavey007 wrote:

"Very heated subject - What I really don't understand is why did Google want to do this in the first place ?? I don't see any extra advertising etc. yet......

But nothing is done online 'just for users' so what do Google really have in mind. I have not yet read any article that can tell me this."

Street View is a unique mapping project at the moment, so it will attract people to use Google's maps rather than it's competitors, and thereby generate advertising revenue.

However, it would seem likely that it will be integrated into Google Earth, since they have the data and ability to merge them. No doubt businesses will soon be able to put links directly into the Streetview website images, much as the 'points of interest' etc already appear on the line and aerial views. I would also be surprised if it didn't become part of a G1 Android satnav system - instead of showing a tilted line drawing, you could see a realistic portrayal of the street you are on.

The online maps are definitely only the beginning of a wider application of technology, but Google has not announced anything yet. In truth, even Google probably doesn't know exactly what it will all be used for eventually. That's not a flaw on their part, it's just the nature of emergent technology. (And before anyone starts up, no, nothing they do with it will infringe rights - the dataset will be faceblurred and number-plate removed).

With all this talk of privacy rights, why has no one yet mentioned privacy responsibility?

These images will inevitably take photographs of people smoking in work vehicles, talking on mobiles while driving, not wearing seatbelts etc. But the faces and number plates are blurred out, so these criminals cannot be prosecuted. Why do people like Jacobs and Blett-Gelard approve of the criminal's rights to not be prosecuted? They want the crime without the punishment. The only complaint about Street View, then, should be that the over-zealous 'privacy' rules forced on it have made it complicit in protecting people who should be prosecuted for breaking the law.

What's the point in having laws if the criminals are granted automatic immunity?

Streetview will be forgotten about next month.

In essence, it is a useful tool which Im sure will be used by potential house buyers, or those who will be visiting an area for whatever reason.

Once the novelty wears off (I went on for 15 mins, smiled at my old houses - havent touched it since) no-one will care.

People living in this village must have a good life!! where the only thing you have to worry about is a car driving through with a big camera on its roof! Oh how I envy them! never mind all the drama going on in the world... a car with a camera is driving down Random Ave in Random Town!!! OH NOEZ!! WHAT R WE GON DOOO!!!1111!

If the people of Broughton kept quiet, nobody would have bothered to view their town and quite possibly most people would have left them 'untouched'.

Instead, they publicised their actions, got a media circus around, creating more interest in their village and what exactly they're trying to 'hide' as it were.

In my view, those that wish their properties to be off the google system just entice people to be more curious as to what is hidden and why, creating more interest and making the areas in question stand out from the 'norm' that will be most houses are part of the service.

#13 Google has the right, like EVERYONE, to photograph from public land in any direction whatsoever.


That's not strictly true. You (as a private citizen) are NOT permitted to photograph policemen in the execution of thier duty (for example), thanks to recent legislation from our Government.

There are also restrictions on photographing certain buildings, including things like bus stations, airports and government owned buildings. These could land you in a police cell for "planning a terrorist operation" or the suchlike.

"With all this talk of privacy rights, why has no one yet mentioned privacy responsibility?

These images will inevitably take photographs of people smoking in work vehicles, talking on mobiles while driving, not wearing seatbelts etc. But the faces and number plates are blurred out, so these criminals cannot be prosecuted. Why do people like Jacobs and Blett-Gelard approve of the criminal's rights to not be prosecuted? They want the crime without the punishment. The only complaint about Street View, then, should be that the over-zealous 'privacy' rules forced on it have made it complicit in protecting people who should be prosecuted for breaking the law.

What's the point in having laws if the criminals are granted automatic immunity?"

Yes that is a point these "rights" campaigners conveniently overlook isn't it. That and the fact that their campaigns for better rights actually help criminals.

And the fact that Mr Jacobs and co. are worried about Street View being used by criminals to execute crime in their area, i.e. burglaries, just shows how out of touch with the real world they actually are.

They would do better by investing in better security measures than protesting at things such as Street View.

With all this talk of privacy, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the obvious conclusion to draw - that the only way forward for the average citizen is to demand the complete opposite:

Transparency.

For all. Make all records public records. Make all images public images. Make everything, about everyone, available to anyone at any time.

Even government officials. Even the PM.

It would be voyeur or stalker heaven for a while, and then the whole thing would settle into a dull, and I do mean dull, rumble of consensus honesty.

Imagine if people really did have nothing to hide.

In theory, what evolves from that is a sort of "meh" privacy, where people are either uninterested in snooping or simply not able to, thanks to the sheer volume of information available. It'd be an interesting state to live in, and we'd also have an end to these folks ranting about privacy whilst standing in front of their homes having wangled an appearance on national TV.

To all of those who feel the need to criticise the residents of Broughton Village using negative phrases or showing imaturity towards it by saying they will show up at the village to take pictures should really think twice about why the residents felt the need to take action against the Google car!

There has been a spate of Burglaries in the area and for anyone that has been the victim of such a crime or even if it has happened in your street you will know how terrifying it is to wonder if your house is being watched(or even your actions). It's a terrible feeling to leave your house everyday wondering what you may or indeed may NOT come home to and Jumping up everytime you hear a noise!
I can only assume that the residents are constantly on tender-hooks worrying about it and are feeling particularly vulnerable at this time.

The Car was in the wrong place at the wrong time and i know that if i was in the same situation i would have challenged the driver too! What if the majority of residents are elderly?! they may well have no idea what Google is...this isn't something to mock, the unknown is scary for anyone.
Who's to say it was even a Google Street Map car? It could have been anyone purporting to be from Google!

@groovySallyK:

The 'action' was taken after the images were taken - this is clear from the residents statements saying they saw the car enter the cul-de-sac and stopped it on it's way out. Any 'action' was too late - since the residents knew about the project, why didn't they contact Google when they heard this would happen?

As for not knowing if they will get burgalled or not, well, I understand that is a concern, but the fact is they need to secure their homes. Three burglaries in six weeks - but that was before Google took any images. Therefore, there is no causality. There is the issue of the residents drawing attention to their street - they went on TV and the press and the internet and actually advertised their high-value, low-security assets to the public. This is where they have defeated themselves - if they had kept the publicity out, they would have been able to preserve their privacy.

Challenging the driver is not acceptable - by all means, talk to the driver, but never block them in or threaten them. They have a legal right to go about their lawful business free from abuse and threatening behaviour. You may not like what they do, but remember that they are low-paid agency workers. Taking your anger out on them will have no effect on Google or your street being posted on the website. The drivers have no access to the images or data, as this would be a breach of privacy or data protection laws since the raw data won't have the blurred plates and faces, plus the driver would know when the images were taken.

Certainly you can ask them what you can do to remove the images, how to lodge a complaint, what Google is, what the images are for. But the key thing here is to be rational and objective, and *stay within the law*. Being aggressive will not help you, and you could find yourself being reported to the police.

You do raise an interesting point that other people could claim to be driving a Street View Car. This was definitely a Google Street View car - the images in the press and in this blog show the car. The police would have checked the registration plate and seen it was registered to Google. If you have any doubts as to the veracity of someone claiming to be driving one of these, note the number plate and ask the police. Also note that the cars are all identical so will look like the one in the photo (or a left-hand drive version from the continent).

The irony of this is that Lordbeddgelert will probably be the first person to have to use location aware mobile technology for his doctors and the emergency services to help with his inevitable blood pressure issues.

1. It is not legal to be anti-social on public transport, both at a civil (the contract you take whilst boarding) and criminal (ASBOs) law levels.

2. Your mobile phone is already location aware based upon the the triangulation is has to do with mobile base towers.

3. I would love to know how a nine month old photo is a breach of privacy. I would love to know how that photo could then track everything about your movements.

You have more to fear from the governments attempts to do that, than Google.

The simple fact is, Google are doing the same as you or I could do. If I wanted to, I could take a photo of your, or anyones house, and put advertisements for anything I wished next to it and at no point would I be breaking the law.

If you want the law changed, appeal to your MP, but I'm afraid that you will probably be dismissed as the cranky, paranoid person that you are coming across as on here.

@Lordbeddgelert and co. - have you seen the latest crime busting initiative by Greater Manchester Police involving CCTV.

Guess you'll all be protesting against that as well because that's a breach of privacy and you weren't consulted about it...

"If you want the law changed, appeal to your MP, but I'm afraid that you will probably be dismissed as the cranky, paranoid person that you are coming across as on here."

I second that.