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As Google Maps Street View showed back then [0], the public at large cares exactly as much about privacy as the media tells them to care about. [0] a huge amou
by Semaphor 5y ago
As Google Maps Street View showed back then [0], the public at large cares exactly as much about privacy as the media tells them to care about.
[0] a huge amount of misinformation going on, making people think there would be live cameras showing them on street view. At least to me, it felt like manufactured outrage by people who didn't understand what was going on (neither the instigators, nor the outraged).
edit: It was mainstream enough that there were articles about it: "Webforscher Humer glaubt, die deutsche Skepsis basiere auf falschen Vorstellungen zu Street View. Viele Menschen würden davon ausgehen, dass Google Live-Bilder übertragen wolle" - https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/webexperte-deutsche-verstehen-street-view-nicht_179437.html https://www.onlinekosten.de/news/webexperte-deutsche-versteh...
I remember more from the local press back then. But it's hard to find sources about it now.
- detaro 5y ago> making people think there would be live cameras showing them on street view that was in no way a mainstream "idea" about it.
- pmontra 5y agoI really never understood why Germans don't like to expose the outside of their public facing houses to Street View. It would be very frustrating not to be able to see in advance where I'll be going to the next day and prepare accordingly. Examples: Is that shop really at that address? Is there some parking in front of that house? I've been using Street View like that for ages.
- bmn__ 5y agoWhat is more important, your convenience or the resident's right to privacy?
- petre 5y agoThe residents should decide because they are, welll, residents. My partner's parents had their house photographed with the garage door open showing a rock & roll poster with the f-word on the inside of the door. A French guy was photographed while taking a leak in the bushes in front fo his house, that he was trimming. He sued Google and won.
- pmontra 5y agoTheir right, of course, but I wonder what happened in Germany that didn't happen at that scale in any other part of the world AFAIK.
- mellavora 5y agoor "I want to break into the house, which windows are hardest for the neighbors to monitor" so it kind of depends on what you mean by "I'll be going to the next day and prepare accordingly."
- ratww 5y agoThe linked article says people thought Street View was a live feed of their houses. This is pure conjecture coming from a single person, and sounds like a massive straw-man. I know several people who have blocked their houses on Google and absolutely none of them had this assumption. Anecdotal, I know, but in the article there is zero data backing that assertion.
- Semaphor 5y agoAs I said, can't find more now. But I remember even reading about fears of it being live in the local newspaper in Flensburg.
- sdoering 5y agoI was working in online media back then. They loved these crazy ideas and promoted them because of massive outrage. Outrage generates clicks and clicks === €. And then they wrote pieces about what kinds of idiots didn't want to have their houses filmed. And about people who had their shop front blurred, because people in the 5th floor didn't want the house to be in the clear on street view. It was outrage porn at it's best. And one of the things that made me decide that I maybe should do something else with my life.
- ratww 5y agoYeah, agreed. As a teen I did an internship in journalism, way before becoming a coder, and crazy stories like those were the bread and butter of newsrooms. :(