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How to blur your house on Google Street View
- the_arun 6y agoWe blurred the house while we were remodelling. I didn’t know we could do it permanenty. Also, we need to ask to do it from street/satellite views as well
- Daniel_sk 6y agoWhy stop there? Put a blurred lexan glass around the house.
- hosteur 6y agoHow to remove from satelite view?
- TeMPOraL 6y agoGet it classified as a military installation.
- Scoundreller 6y agoI remember looking up some French prisons and they were blurred out. So I went over to Yandex and got an unfiltered look.
- postalrat 6y agoWhy blur during a remodel?
- the_arun 6y agoCause it was showing partial house plan and for security reasons we had to blur it :)
- jasonvorhe 6y agoWow, this resurfaces memories when conservative boulevard publications and parties in Germany turned people to fight Google Streetview in 2009 for "privacy reasons" and everyone fell for it and blurred their house. Today, everyone I know who blurred their house hates on Streetview pictures being close to useless because they haven't been updated since 2009. Google just didn't update them after the mess they had to handle in Germany. And why would they.
- blp10 6y agoSince when are conservatives in Germany involved in data protection? Our dear leader Merkel has exhorted the population not to be so thrifty with personal data! Privacy initiatives are mostly driven by independent thinkers throughout all parties.
- luckylion 6y agoMerkel isn't considered conservative by conservatives ;) Other than that, I don't remember it being an issue pushed by conservatives either, but maybe it was in some regions, or in more rural locations.
- aflag 6y agoInteresting, I don't think I'd mind not having the street view feature. The only reason I use it is to see how foreign countries look like. What are people using it for?
- plumsempy 6y agoI use it to have a visual anchor of what the place looks like. While driving sometimes its not appropriate to slow down and read the building number, but a big visual like building color or shape will help. Especially if I want to enter the building where missing it means missing the destination. Another use case of mine, is when I have to go through an intersection of streets or freeways with a lot of merging and diverging routes, I use street view to know which lanes do I have to be on to not miss my exits, or what signs would I read if I am on the correct route. So in summary, large visual hints.
- mxuribe 6y agoThis feels like years ago when clever spam emails would ask you to unsubscribe, which really only sent them a confirmation signal that your email address was valid, and the human behind it was responsive (to a degree). If i go and blur my home, does that now send an additional signal to google for the shadow (or maybe not-so-shadow) dossier that they keep on me (and billions of others)?? I'll admit that clearly this speaks more to my lack of trust of orgs like Google. Then again, i wonder if i submit requests to blur many/all of the homes in my neighborhood - as a very mild randomizer effect - if google would honor all my requests? Or, if they would use other signals to try and zone in on my true location (using, say gps/location from my phone, etc.), and only allow blurring of my home?
- Tagbert 6y ago> Operation initiated > Dossier update in-progress > Operation complete >|
- aflag 6y agoWhat happens if you rent the house? If someone moves in will they not be able to unblur it?
- ghaff 6y agoApparently not. And Google also apparently actually deletes the imagery, possibly to be compliant with European privacy directives.
- ablation 6y agoI wonder if this might have an unintended Streisand Effect outcome e.g. people seeking out blurred locations in person to find what "they" don't want you to see (regardless of the fact that the "they" is just someone who cares about their privacy)?
- Igelau 6y agoIf you want to see my Goatse mural, you have to come see it in person.
- Lammy 6y agoI’ve never actually run across a “blurred” single home and wouldn’t really have the urge to look more into one if I did, but I have seen several cases where entire nearby streets are unavailable on Street View. I’ve gone after a small handful of those out of curiosity :)
- cdubzzz 6y agoOddly enough, I happened to come across the first blurred home I have ever seen today when randomly picking a house to get a Sarasota, FL zip code — https://goo.gl/maps/eogUZfNsLBMEqWEK8 https://goo.gl/maps/eogUZfNsLBMEqWEK8
- Fogest 6y agoIt's funny because you can just zoom out and see the house from satellite view in 3d and see almost the same amount you'd see from street view.
- znpy 6y agoIf nothing stops you from requesting blur for any location, you might as well blur random houses in your neighborhood or whole city, just to make your own blurred house less noteworthy.
- pmontra 6y agoThread about unblurring https://support.google.com/maps/thread/5010142?hl=en https://support.google.com/maps/thread/5010142?hl=en Apparently anybody can request to blur any house and probably the blurring can't be reversed by the new owners of a house.
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoI wonder how successfully someone could abuse this to blur large swaths of Street View. It'd obviously require some effort to ensure Google didn't know all the requests came from one actor or group.
- xxpor 6y agoSounds like a case of a sticky wheel gets the grease. If it became such an issue it threatened the viability of street view, they'd quickly come up with a policy to deal with it. As is its not worth the time to create or administer the ongoing ops such a policy would require.
- cortesoft 6y agoSure, but it could become a big problem for one street or neighborhood without becoming a big enough problem for google to care.
- ghaff 6y ago>without becoming a big enough problem for google to care Well, that's the point. Google doesn't care if it's a big problem for a person, a street, or a neighborhood so long as it's not a problem for them.
- Lammy 6y agoIt’s funny that the thread doesn’t say that there’s no way to unblur, but that there’s no way to get in touch with an actual human at Google to request such :p
- verroq 6y agoSo you have to tell Google what your address is?
- cdubzzz 6y agoIf you have a Google account, I’d assume your address is already known. The form only asks for clarifying details and an email address.
- verroq 6y agoHow did they know my address from having a Google account?
- bonzini 6y agoRecording it as home in Google Maps.
- hoytschermerhrn 6y agoSo many different options: Shipping confirmation emails, IP addresses of connected accounts, GPS of frequent locations (i.e at nights when you're presumably sleeping), phone number for 2FA that can easily be reverse-lookup'd to PII databases, etc. etc.
- oh_sigh 6y agoWould you rather them able to blur your house without you telling them your address?
- jonwachob91 6y agoThe article states that you have to give Google a reason, and google can request more information before bluring the house. So what would a good block of text be to request that they blur my house just b/c I don't want google to be showing my house?
- jenoer 6y agoThe request for more information will likely only be to confirm you are owner of the property / residing there. As for the request, I simply stated "I want my house blurred for privacy reasons.". No questions were asked and the request was processed within a week.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- leptoniscool 6y agoHow would this work for a condo or apartment type property? If just one of the unit wants blur, does the whole building get blurred? Also, what happens if that person moves?
- jenoer 6y agoYou have to draw a rectangle on the area you want blurred. I for example, only blurred my windows.
- tonywebster 6y agoMy house was blurred many years ago and I wish it wasn't. It almost draws more attention when you look at Street View, which is probably contrary to privacy interests. I've also had odd reactions from companies I've called out to do maintenance or yard work. Some of them never show up, and I suspect it is at least in part because they draw some negative inference from the blurred house. I'm also thinking about selling the house soon, and I just know it's going to be problematic. I've tried to get it unblurred several times, but have failed to get a response from Google.
- DINKDINK 6y ago>My house was blurred [...] It almost draws more attention [...], which is probably contrary to privacy interests. You're commenting on privacy when you're addressing covertness. Privacy/Secrecy qualities addresses observability. Secrecy: information desired to never be known (eg Location of your savings) Privacy: information desired to be selectively known (eg a medical issue) Covertness: information desired to be unsurprising (eg the thickness of your wallet being a side channel to your wealth) Covertness is context dependent and in some contexts, a highly covert entity can actually be less private than a highly private entity. Walking around town in a ScrambleSuit will make you more private but less covert. Getting the same haircut, clothes, gate of people in your town will make you more covert but less private.
- Craighead 6y agoWhat does your comment provide in terms of resolving the issue at hand?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dusted 6y agoI came here just to write about that. I don't have mine blurred, but I thought about it, that it'd be drawing more attention if it was.. When 50% is blurred, maybe..
- de_watcher 6y ago
- tyingq 6y agoI wonder what they do to verify that it's your house to blur. Maybe a "somewhat aged" Google account plus submitting it while in/near the house? Not that it's a huge deal, but it does sound like it's not reversable.
- encom 6y agoRequiring people to create a Google account to request Google stop spying on them is just insulting. I just checked the neighbourhood I grew up in, and the Google surveillance van snapped fresh pictures last summer. Because the homes are so close to the street, you can literally see into peoples living rooms. Disgusting.
- crazygringo 6y agoI'm curious -- does this blur it just in the current batch of Street View photos, or for future ones too? (Cars/faces would seem to be only for current, but blurring a house seems like it could be automatically re-applied eternally.)
- drusepth 6y agoThe fact that this is permanent seems like it won't scale well over time as people who would blur their house move from house to house. What am I supposed to do if I move into a house that someone else has blurred?
- nine_k 6y agoIt's sort of hard to me to imagine why one would like to edit out public and trivially available information about oneself. It only draws attention, and not in a positive way, like a hopeless attempt to conceal something obvious. I can see the point when one's house is already behind a tall wall, invisible for passers-by, and it gets revealed on the Google maps 3D view. Blurring it out makes sense then.
- jaimex2 6y agoWhats the "why you should" part? Seems like a great way to make life harder for yourself for no reason.
- znpy 6y agoA good reason to blur your property is to protect yourself from lazy public officers. I've read stories about tax officers copying pictures of countryside location where some kind of spot had emerged, and use then to claim that a house without permit was built and advance IRS-like requests for taxation under the threats of legal action. No actual in person visit to the location was done, of course.