The Googlization of Everything

The Economic Times:

Wipe off your home from Google's Street View to keep voyeurs at bay 7 Aug, 2008, 1553 hrs IST, AGENCIES

MELBOURNE: People, who want to keep their homes away from the prying eyes of voyeurs on Google's Street View, can now get their house entirely removed from the smart feature that provides 360 degrees panoramic street-level views of the cities.

The feature came into light after Hollywood stars like Winona Ryder started having their homes removed or the addresses changed on Google Street View to keep voyeueristic fans at bay. Winona Ryder's residence is listed as 1320 N.

Doheny West Hollywood, although the Street View map lists it as 1314 N. Doheny Dve and is on the corner of Cordell Dve. A few clicks of the button are all it requires to wipe off your home from Google's Street View. However, Rob Shilkin of Google Australia said that the process could take a couple of minutes or a few days to come into affect, depending on the volume of requests.

"The owner or the occupier can request for the image to be removed. Look for Street View 'help', and click on that and you will see 'report image,'" News.com.au quoted Shilkin, as telling the Courier Mail. Many interesting sites in Hollywood have been deleted to avoid people from doing a virtual reality tour of actors' homes, visiting movie locations or even seeing crime scenes.

There have also been cases where entire streets have been wiped from Street View existence, such as large chunks of Rodeo Drive to prevent people from even window shopping online. In fact, many other avenues and streets in the plush suburb have also been blocked.

"An entire street can be blocked if all the residents in that street ask for it," said Shilkin. However, this deletion is not limited only to private homes, for other major xites like the iconic Chateau Marmont hotel in West Hollywood, which is chock full of Hollywood history and best known for the death of John Belushi, is seen in the distance on one angle in a frame of a neighbouring property but cannot be accessed from the front of the residence. There are also instances where numbers in the street have been duped, doubled up or wiped to create confusion.

Here is some more reaction to Google street view in Australia:

Google up the PM's house as Street View goes online

Caroline Overington | August 06, 2008

IF you've ever wondered what kind of house Kevin Rudd lived in before he became Prime Minister, wonder no more.

As of yesterday, there's a photograph of Mr Rudd's house on the internet, accessible to anybody with access to a computer (note to Kevin: the branches out front could do with a trim).

The PM's house -- and many millions of others, including, probably, yours and your boss's -- has been made available for perusal on Street View, part of Google's ambitious plan to photograph the world. ...

Here is some from The Netherlands (in Dutch).

And here is some more from the UK:

Sometime in the past few weeks, I was walking with a friend when we spotted a very funny looking car. We both immediately knew what it was and as the car drove closer by, our suspicions were confirmed: it was a Google Streetview car outside London. Feeling naughty, I shouted at the car as it drove by something along the lines of "there are privacy laws" and to my surprise an old man across the streed did the same! It was very funny how both of us knew what a Streetview car looked like!

Then it hit me: the road we were on that the car was driving into was a dead end road. Picture time! So I dropped my stuff and asked my friend to watch them while I set up my phone and found a good spot to take some photos as the car drove back out again. So I watched as the car reached the end, did a U-turn and drove back out again. However, as it got close to me, the car pulled up into an empty parking spot and the driver came out. He shouted at me saying "I know you want to take pictures but I don't want to be in them." I obliged.

While taking the photos, I talked to the driver a little bit. Here are some details from the notes I scribbled afterwards:

* Google has a centre in Milton Keynes where this operation was based in. The drivers just showed up for "a driving job" (his words) and didn't know it was for Google until the arrived to pick up the cars.
* The drivers were given training to use the computers inside the car. It's not hard: it's a large-ish touch screen (I guessed about 17in or maybe a 19in when I saw it) with a record and a pause button.
* The screen is to the left of the driver in the passenger seat with a large server at the back in the trunk. The back seats of the car were removed - it was just a big space. The connections into the server were just power and ethernet. The ethernet seemed to be going up to the camera but I'm not sure if it ran to something else.
* The camera is rain sensitive. It collapses in a very funky way and has to be covered. The drivers are under strict instructions to do so.
* This particular driver was very sensitive to the privacy issues. He was having a personal conflict about the whole thing and was stopped by (his words) "10 people" that very day. Why? Because only recently had the BBC published an article about Google Streetview starting with Google's plans to launch a mapping tool in the UK could be referred to the Information Commissioner". No wonder the driver didn't want to be in the photo!

Thanks, Geert!