March 22, 2009 by Jack Fox
The privacy issue has already been tried and found wanting in court. You may remember in this blog a few weeks ago we told you about the case of the Boring’s, an American couple who sued Google for invasion of privacy. The case was thrown out by the judge, who basically ridiculed their claim, stating that she did not believe they’d been disadvantaged in any way by Google and furthermore, that they were suing the search engine giant only in order to generate publicity for themselves.
So far, Google have been very gracious towards anyone who has been unfortunate enough to be caught in a compromising position by the camera car. People caught going into porn theatres and ladies flashing their underwear as they emerged from cars, have been removed with apologies so it’s hard to see what anyone has to complain about, really.
The crime issue is a more serious accusation. However, it is also far more baseless than the privacy claim. Not only does Google provide no more information than just going to the place and having a look, any burglar who used it would be missing a pretty serious point.
Street View is not live!
A fancy car outside a house will not necessarily be there when you go to rob the place, if they don’t have a burglar alarm when you check the pictures, they might have bought one by the time you go round.
Essentially, the criticisms of Street View are completely baseless. We should stop complaining and just enjoy playing with the new Google invention.
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