He clarified that he wasn't impressed that now, everybody with access to the Internet will be able to know where our home is, and what it looks like. I wasn't buying it, but he seemed pretty sure of himself.
Now, why is this such an invasion of privacy? I took a deeper look, and found that while Google wasn't breaking any laws, they have been getting a lot of backlash for the Streetview project. This isn't really new to Google, who has done a lot of things that were deemed "questionable" (i.e Google Books, Google Buzz and Gmail in the early days). But while I can understand the controversy of scanning copyrighted books without permission or storing people's private information without their knowledge, I don't see much of a problem with photographing houses. It's not any more an invasion of privacy as letting people walk on sidewalks.
In my opinion, the main opposition here comes from "future shock". It's a term you might have come across before. It's pretty much the feeling you get when you see technological advancements happening faster and faster. You feel lost, and you feel like the world's a worse place off, somehow. And that might be true. For every benefit coming out of a product, there's a downside. While Facebook gives you a chance to reconnect with people you haven't seen for years, it's possible to spend hours waiting for updates from people.
If there is one thing Google wants to accomplish, it's to obtain as much information as possible, and make it easy to access (maybe part of the reason Finland is declaring the internet a legal right). That's what they did with their search engine, their photo service, and their video service, which have pretty much cataloged a good deal of the Internet. That's what they're doing with Google Books, even with the opposition. And that's what they're doing with Streetview.
Streetview can be considered an experiment for now, but there are already some uses to it. Yesterday, I used it to plan an outing into the city, looking for restaurants close to where I was going and looking at landmarks to help me find my way there when I actually was there. You can use it to look at neighborhoods, to see if the place your new apartment is located is actually as good a neighborhood as the landlord claims. One of my favorite uses is to locate landmarks around the world, and get a good look at them, with shots like this:
which makes for a better experience than just through pictures, anyways.
And to those people who might oppose Streetview, let me ask you this: what was the first thing you looked for when you heard about it?
What are your opinions on Streetview? Leave your comments below.
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