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German vandals target Street View opt-out homes
- phreeza 16y agoI didn't think very much of it at the time these requests were made, but now that I have seen the effect, pixelating these houses seems like an act of vandalism in itself to me. Imagine 50 or so years from now, these recordings will be a wonderful document of our times, but in Germany they are now heavily scarred.
- ugh 16y agoBut don’t you know that creating historical documents is not the task of filthy profit-oriented corporations but of the pure German government?
- Tichy 16y agoTouche - I guess the EU will soon invest a Trillion dollars into their own streetview project, which will unfortunately never go anywhere (what has happened to the EU financed Google killer?).
- Luc 16y agoHow so? The source material is no doubt still available in unpixelated form.
- macco 16y agoAccording to google, it is not.
- _stephan 16y agoNo, the German data protection officials insisted on Google blurring the original source material and not preserving any unblurred copies. IMHO, that might be appropriate in certain exceptional circumstances, e.g. when inadvertently something very private or embarrassing has been captured, but it is a bit over the top as a general policy.
- _grrr 16y agoI've opted out from street-view, asking both my flat, and my car to be removed, Google obliged. No eggs yet.
- griftah 16y agoWhy?
- _grrr 16y agoWhy did I opt out? I'm not on Twitterbook, and try to share as little personal (non work related) information on-line as I can (although there's probably more out there than I'd like). It's my 'default mode' to be cautious when sharing data, I may be over-cautious but I still think it's my right to be. There only seems to be upside for Google, and potential downside for me, in having my property on their site.
- griftah 16y agoDo you understand that image of your house is public domain information?
- _grrr 16y agoI do. It's a public space. But while Google gives me the option to remove it, I will.
- griftah 16y agoSo you are vandal. You are vandalizing Street View.
- alecco 16y agoLet's put a webcam at your door. Your employer would love to confirm you are on your way on time this morning and some of us would love to see you struggling with the keys again, like the other night. It's public information.
- eru 16y agoThe picture displays typical German life.
- SZW 16y agoHaha, totally. I don't know - I think it's kind of sad. Rural Bavarian life is taken for life in Germany in general... it's plain wrong. I should know, because I live in Germany. I wonder why everyone keeps going back to restricting Germany to that single cliche.
- eru 16y agoBecause the other cliché is even less political correct. (And I am German, but don't live there any longer.)
- riffraff 16y agoThe southern part of a european country is usually the stereotype of the larger nation. When thinking of the UK the stereotype is the english banker more than the scottish clansmen, for spain is the mediterranean south insted of the atlantic/mountainous north, for italy it's the more noisy&caoithic rome/naples/sicily instead of the mitteleuropeans & industrial milan and turin. I have no explanation for this though except some pseudohistorical ramblings.
- eru 16y agoHow about the Russians? It can get pretty hot in the south in summer there, but everyone is just depicting Russia in winter. Another funny thing is that part of European countries that's closer to Switzerland tends to be richer. E.g. the north of Italy, and the south of Britain and Germany. (It doesn't work for Belgium, though.)
- Tichy 16y agoStrange enough, I passed an Alphorn concert in a Berlin park the other day. Berlin is very far away from the Alps.
- ugh 16y ago
- thetable 16y agoThe other kind of vandalism has happened too, where houses were requested to be taken down / pixelated by someone other than the owner or tenants. There was a news report about this happening to the Green party headquarters last week, and according to Google, it couldn't be undone because Google had deleted the data (imagine that).
- ugh 16y agoCompletely deleting the photos of houses people requested to be blurred was one of the requirements of the government. (It’s not a law but a voluntary agreement. The government did, however, threaten to regulate services like Street View. That’s probably not going to happen now.)
- Tichy 16y agoI must admit that I would find it amusing as a street art project to pixelate some of those houses for real, with some kind of graffiti perhaps. Or like the artist Christo who wraps things into garments (including the German Reichstag). I find the pixelated buildings really annoying. Luckily mine isn't pixelated yet, but I am sure it is only a matter of time. My street already has 5 pixelated buildings.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago>I would find it amusing as a street art project to pixelate some of those houses for real, That would be fantastic, I'm thinking, having large pixels on a fuzzy material, varying colours matched to the surrounding buildings but at different depths to avoid anyone getting a focussed image of the whole building? Any ideas on materials? At first I thought frosted perspex, but I'm more drawn to fabric that can be fuzzy round the edges too.
- wolfgke 16y agoI live in Germany and eyed the whole process of Google Street View. The whole thing with the opt-out is more considered to be a conflict of generations, so don't take this too seriously. The problem is a different one: if in one apartment building only one rentee opts out the whole apartment building becomes blurred. This is what caused a lot of hate by rentees who want the house to be seen in Street View. Another action that occured (only in German, sorry, but I'll try to translate roughly): http://asset.soup.io/asset/1253/8519_985c.jpeg http://asset.soup.io/asset/1253/8519_985c.jpeg Someone put a note saying that because some rentee saw his private sphere violated by Google Street View he won't accept packages for his neighbours anymore since this is also a violation of private sphere. Additionally he blurred his signature for security reasons (because of the often quoted argument that showing the house in Google Street View causes safety concerns).