Thursday, February 9, 2012

Google Maps is watching you



New post on Fellowship of the Minds

Google Maps is watching you

by Dr. Eowyn

Fraser Cain writes for Universe Today, Oct. 26, 2009, that thanks to commercial Earth observation satellites, and internet tools that make these photos accessible, we now can see our house from space.

The best tool on the market is the service from Google Maps. All you need is a web browser and a connection to the internet. When you first start up, Google Maps displays a satellite view of North America. You can then zoom in, or pan the camera around to see any location on Earth. You can also type in the address of the location that you want to see. Once you do that, you'll get a free satellite view of your house.

If you don't like Google, there are similar services from Yahoo and Microsoft. Microsoft's mapping service is Bing Maps; the Yahoo service is called Yahoo Maps. There's even an application that lets you see and compare Google's and Yahoo's views of your house, side-by-side.

But Google has gone beyond birds-eye satellite images of houses. Google now sends camera cars to take pics of the street view of your house. The camera's eye is now everywhere -- even when you think no one is looking!

That's what a woman in Liberty City, Florida, discovered. (The Miami New Times was kind enough to black out her intimate parts.)

Carlos Miller writes for Pixiq.com, Sept. 9, 2011, that "for the most part, everybody and everything is fair game to be photographed in the United States." In Europe and other parts of the world, however, it is not so clear-cut. Some countries have laws that forbid the photographing of people in public for public display without their consent. "Google insists it respects people's privacy regardless of country and has been blurring people's faces since 2008."

As for the naked woman, Google first removed her picture, then reposted the picture, but blurred her out.

Moral of this story:

Be careful what you do outside your house, even if you think no neighbor is around to see what you're doing!

~Eowyn

Dr. Eowyn | February 9, 2012 at 5:11 am | Tags: Bing Maps, Google camera car, privacy, Yahoo Maps | Categories: Humor, Media, United States | URL: http://wp.me/pKuKY-bJr

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