Google Street View Take 2

After the BBC comes GMTV and I can't believe this is still rumbling on. Switched on to hear some guy complaining it was an invasion of privacy; seriously what is that - the catchphrase for the 21st Century?

So how is Street View and invasion of privacy? Because it takes a photo of your house and pops it on the internet with an exact location? Are Google doing anything that a random passer-by couldn't do? No they aren't. Let's be blunt about this - Google aren't doing anything illegal - heck they're even blanking out faces and car licence plates which they don't have to do. If you're in public you're fair game to have your picture taken; if your house fronts to a public area it's fair game to have its picture taken.

It's interesting to note that when you have a camera crew on a news story standing at the top of your street no-one complains that their house is in shot and thus an invasion of their privacy.

Okay yes the photos can be scrutinised closely more so than news footage and they are a higher resolution then stills in a newspaper, but still no-one can see anything that a normal passer-by couln't see.

Talking about this someone piped in with "But what's the point of it?" I pointed out that it gives a real-eye view of directions, but mostly that she was asking the wrong question - this is a case of "We can do this so let's and see what people can do with it" it's emergent technology. I'm betting people looking to move house are already using this to case the surrounding neighbourhood; I'm also betting that lots of people will be using this in ways that the authors would never have thought of.