Google maps has a relatively new feature called "street view." As the name implies, this feature allows you to view street-level photographs of locations on the map; you can move up and down the streets, as well as rotate 360 degrees. I tried my home address, and I can see my house and car. How did they get these photos? From the looks of them, somebody had to drive down the street, snapping a photo every 50 feet or so. I'll be sure to put on my tin hat the next time I go out in public.

Driving down the street snapping photos is exactly what they do. It's causing some privacy issues, needless to say.

I THINK a couple in Portland threatened to sue Google for invasion of privacy for publishing street view photographs of their property without their permission. Pretty soon, people will have to copyright their own likeness and that of their children and property. Then perhaps they could charge Google or other mediums for using their picture. Just an idea.

I can sort-of see how this is a grey area. These photos were all taken from public streets. Anybody walking or driving down these streets could have taken similar photos. I will give Google credit in that they seem to have blurred out the faces of people who appear in the photos.

I think people just need to deal. The street view function is simply bringing information to people about far away places and people.

If a given photo is a problem, why not just contact Google and have them deal with it?

The street is public, period. If I am standing on the street and choose to take a photo, I can publish it. This is true for all of us.

Say the property is ugly. Well, prior to Google, people would walk by, talk about how ugly it is, maybe take photos and share the scene with others.

What happens today?

People talk about the ugliness and share the scene with others.

Don't like it?

(and that's valid, IMHO)

Then go get after it. Contact Google, put up barriers, clean the place up, etc...

This isn't like having a camera on your home 24/7. It's a snapshot, intended to give someone a feel for what that part of the world looks like. That's it.

Just ran a check on a few addresses. The view is old, and resolution limited. For example, a car in the driveway is not resolved well enough to capture the license plate.

They actually mounted a panoramic cam on top of a car and drove it all over the damn place. If you pan way down you can see bits of the car. I imagine they just shot hi def video and took stills from it every so often.

They will blur or black out your property or face if you ask them to. When this first came out there was a bit of a row regarding guys who were photographed coming out of a sex shop in SF.

Heh heehhhh.....I punched my folks' address in and the picture Google shows appears to be a bit old. Said picture shows a yellow house with a birch tree in front. Needless to say, Dad repainted the house olive-drab about a year ago and we chopped the tree down last February. ;o)

Oh yeah, and you can't even see my satellite dish on the left side of the house.........didn't have it up yet, it looks like. That will cost them some huge cred points right there. ;o)

So much for being the "most up to date search programme on the Internet"..........

*walks away laughing*

I was just happy that my front lawn was mowed the day they drove down my street.

I just looked up our house, and they are showing the back of our house on a different road. My parents house is the one next to the one they are showing. Based on these two results, not terribly impressed with the accuracy of the photos.

Interesting.

The places I checked out appeared to be pretty accurate. They are taking small increments in a lot of places too!

Was able to go back to the house I lived in as a kid, "walk" down the street and the experience was fairly solid. Core things, that would not have changed significantly, were present and spatially correct.

Maybe the car that surveyed your area had a glitch?

That would be fun part time work too.

The street view has a disclaimer that the addresses shown are only approximate. The listing for my house is off by a little bit.

I spotted DB Cooper in Skybill's driveway. Hmm . . . could it be . . .

On my home computer, I do not have the option to have street view. My work laptop does. What gives?

did you try putting street view into the google search bar?

that's how I accessed it on my laptop.

I didn't have to do anything on my laptop, it worked right away. No dice on the home machine.

Does that machine have an older browser installed?

If so, snag the newer Firefox 2.x, or maybe the brand new 3.x browsers and give that a shot.

Been working in Safari for me.

I use Internet Explorer or both computers.

Forwarded to Art Bell.

Littlesongs, at 44-45-01.32N / 119-41-08.17W there is a map tag that says "Navy Bombing Range Target NE Oregon"

Hmmm....

Check out 47-37-37N / 117-38-38W.

Maybe we should start a Google Earth thread where we can post cool things we find?

I think I will!