COMMENT: Street View nothing short of voyeurism (From Worcester News)

Are people able to 'blank' their houses out? Yes.
.
Will 99.99% of people who use Google Earth use it for the purposes of burgling people's houses?
No.
.
Has it been in use for some time in other countries?
Yes.
.
Has the level of house burglaries risen as a result?
No.
.
Are people making this a bigger issue than it actually is?
I think so.

Exactly tulstar we debated this to death yesterday, I haven’t got the will to go round in circles again, the images are historic, so unless as others are said burglars now have time travelling skills it isn’t really a concern. It doesn’t show anything that anyone walking up a public street could see for them selves anyway. I think tis a great tool and hopefully something that’ll be useful to businesses and the public in helping to find locations etc.

What a ridiculous rant. This is not 'capturing our every move'. It is not 'another example of our lives being taped and recorded'. Show me an example where it can see 'directly into people's homes' in any detail. You get far greater detail by going to have a look at the real thing. This is is just a series of one-off snapshots of a single moment in time, strung together in a clever way. Funny how anyone who calls this an 'invasion of privacy' never actually explains how their personal privacy is affected. There is nothing in this to tie these images to any individual. No mention of the historical value of this or the educational value. Worcester News: grow up and become a responsible news service.

The UK is the best mapped country on the planet. It has been mapped in great detail for around 200 years now. Modern mapping has been carried out by aerial photography since man has been able to get cameras up into the air. Oblique aerial photographs that allow anyone to view most significant urban areas (including Worcester)from 4 different viewpoints has been available to view on the web for around 5 years. That allows anyone to view the back, front and sides of a building. If I want higher resolution images of a particular area then I can purchase them from many sources. I’ve never heard the sort of ridiculous comments made about this technolgy as I have about Google Streetview. This sort of imaging is invaluable to many businesses and individuals. Architects, engineers, town planners, utility companies, surveyors, roofing companies, to name but a few, all use these existing images to price and plan their everyday work. I use these services daily in my own business. If I'm visiting somewhere on holiday, I always check out what the place looks like first, as do millions of other people. Google Streetview is merely enhancing what is already widely available. Walking down the street and looking around you is not voyeurism, why on earth is an image taken at one point in time classed as being so? This is Streetview – the clue is in the name! It’s not Backgardenview and it’s certainly not Bathroomview! This is not voyeurism and neither is it any more an invasion of privacy than someone walking passed your house.
Some people might wonder what use a desktop publishing program is, or why someone would need Wikipedia - everyday tools of your average Worcester News journalist - but most of us understand that even journalists use technology and we wouldn’t display the sort of Luddite attitudes I've read in this column today.

I've just peeked over someone's fence, over their foliage and into their back garden. Courtesy of streetview.

I fail to comprehend how this can not be considered a breach of privacy.

I accept the 'removal request', however, there are residents without internet access who will have absolutely no idea that their house is now available to view by anyone with internet access from any corner of the globe.

I'm glad to see that the Editor hasn't become caught up in the, "Ooooh wow isn't this new toy great, how very kind of Google to spend all that petrol money driving around to make us happy" factor being propagated by Google's UK Press Office.

Whats quite funny about all this uproar is that for years you have been able to see most people's street/houses/garden
s on Multimap. It seems that because Google advertised it people are going mad about privacy, were people not aware that other sites have this information?

If you want to catch up on yesterday's lengthy debate, I've added a link to the bottom of the article, above.
.
MK - Digital Editor

To be honest it is already nearly 2 years out of date as my house was photographed definitely July in 2008 as the roses were out and I had up net curtains then. The site tells me that my house is no 10 when in fact it is not and 10 is actually on the other side of the road