Google Street Level View comes to the 'Ville

[shana-lyons.livejournal.com]

Google's Street Level View team has apparently done a really thorough job mapping the Somerville area over the last few months. Street Level view went live for the Boston area today. I looked at our house and I can see our pizza takeout boxes in our recycling. It's REALLY detailed. you guys might want to take a look at your home to see what the world can now see.

Comments

[elements.livejournal.com]

True. But for the vast majority of human history, what we did in public wasn't permanently, accurately recorded for instant public access in perpetuity.

We're getting used to that as more of our public lives move online, but still, when we act in public online we know we're putting things on a public record. When we go about our lives on the public streets, we don't (yet) have a reasonable assumption that our actions will be permanently recorded.

And if we did, that well might change people's behavior offline to more closely match behavior online. We can't use "pseudonyms" when being recorded by a camera, but if I knew Google were doing StreetView recordings, I would be careful not to do certain things, or to do them wearing nondescript clothing, during that time period. If we never know when that time period is, then that's a chilling effect on my public behavior.

Ex: certain (Christian evangelical) members of my family don't know that I'm bi. If I don't know when I might be recorded in public, I might be more careful - chillingly careful - about when I express physical affection towards women. In particular, if there's the possibility of my house being recorded at any moment, I can reasonably expect that anything I do in front of my home is potentially fair game for my family to see, if it happens to be what makes it into a StreetView shot of my home. That might mean that if I had a girlfriend, I wouldn't hold her hand or kiss her outside the house.

Yes, those would be my choices, and yes, at this stage of the game that feels like it would be overcautious, but there have already been people upset at being caught doing things they are fine doing in public, but maybe not in front of *all* publics. What I am willing to do in Davis Square, Somerville, MA is very different from what I am willing to do in front of some parts of my family, or professional associates.

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

Yeah. There was a bit of a scandal over StreetView shots of one particular field near Stanford University, where a lot of very good-looking undergrads would lie in the sun in bathing suits... Google found out when that street became inexplicably popular. Not sure what their reaction was, but it might have been to blur out the people, or go back and redo the photos on a chilly day.