Paranoid Villagers Force Google's Car Out of Town
People talk about the pros and cons of Google Street View all the time: It allows people to visit places they’ve never been before without ever leaving their couch. It also shows burglars which areas areas have the bigger fancier houses and which ones don’t have big fancy gates.
One crowd of British folk who had a problem with the idea decided to take the matter into their own hands. Instead of just requesting the picture be removed after it had been taken and used on Google Street View, they community physically forced the Google Street View car out of the area in order to stop the photos being taken in the first place.
The TimesOnline reports that as Google Street View car trundled towards Broughton with a 360-degree camera on its roof, villagers formed a human chain to stop it. While they were arranging themselves they lectured the Googler inside about the invasion of privacy and insisted he was facilitating crime by posting pictures online that could be used by burglars.
Resident Paul Jacobs was the first person to notice, according to the Times. “I was upstairs when I spotted the camera car driving down the lane,” he said. “My immediate reaction was anger; how dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime.”
Mr. Jacobs described the area as affluent and claimed there’d already been three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. “If our houses are plastered all over Google it’s an invitation for more criminals to strike. I was determined to make a stand, so I called the police.”
While we recognize the concerns people have with Google Street View, we laughed out loud when we read this story. If they’re so worried about robberies, they might try investing in an alarm for their house rather than trying to hide the fact that it’s there at all.
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Why is it an invasion of privacy? If I drive down the street, I'd see the house. Google isn't on private property and they aren't giving us anything I couldn't get for free.
Idiots.
surprised there weren't any torches and pitchforks with yelling something about witchcraft and black magic...
brits... tsss!
When I found out Google street view was being made, I immediately bought curtains and a dog for protection.
Your neighbours house just got robbed , would you feel comfortable with complete strangers drving around in a car taking pictures of your house to put on the internet where evrey Tom,Dick and Harry can see?
Remember people, different country. Their neo socialist system does not afford the same rights that other countries possess.
Dick wouldn't rob houses with Tom nor Harry. Only his wife Jane. Duh...
The villagers are "Paranoid"? That's insulting and condescending. What ever happened to the "right to privacy"? Nosy people have plenty of options for their voyeurism. Get off your lazy behinds and GO somehwere!
I don't understand what those people are thinking?
"Maybe if the robbers don't think there are any houses in this town... they won't rob us!"
Lol @ fun with Dick and Jane
I was irritated when I found out my street had just streetviewed. 1st, I missed seeing the vehicle, I wanted to see it in person. 2nd, I didn't get to flash my junk at the camera/post a humorous sign for all to see! *shakes fist* D:
"right to privacy"?
never heard of it...
I think the problem is the immediate availability of these images if someone wanted to use them for crime. Sure...if a criminal wanted to case houses he would have to drive down the street. These pictures help him to do a better job of it. When you are driving down the street you only have a few seconds to glance at something. Here you have all day to study the images and make a plan for gaining entry and escape.
I say downtown New York...fine...millions of photos have already been taken of that destination. That's a tourist spot. When it comes to private residence nobody is going to want to look down every single street in every single town. I think the should not be allowed to do this to residential streets. It just isn't needed.
I think those villagers need to buy ostrich costumes and then do what ostriches do when danger approaches... seeing as they are doing it as a group anyway.
I'm sure that thieves stake out places to rob via Google Street View, cause they like to use pictures that could be months old, rather than scoping it out for themselves. Some people are ridiculous.
63635: Well...judging by your nic you already see yourself as a barcode. You are just another number. When they drive through your neighbourhood make sure you invite them into your home so they can catalogue all of your belongings. Don't forget to add all the metadata as well. I am sure they would appreciate that detail in the shopping list.
Ban maps; it allow thefts to find my house and plan an escape route if I ran out with a shotgun. Ban school, I don't want future thefts learn how to read so they would miss my "Beware of Dogs" and “Shot on sight” sign.
I'll do that. But I'll be sure include the Mossberg 12ga and it's corresponding box of buckshot that'll reign firey hell into his ass if the stupid son of a bitch ever decides to rob me based on pics Google provided.
Damn we need an edit button... I meant I'll include all of that in the pics they take when I invite them into my house.
Your neighbours house just got robbed , would you feel comfortable with complete strangers drving around in a car taking pictures of your house to put on the internet where evrey Tom,Dick and Harry can see?
if your neighbor got robbed, then your house has ALREADY been staked out. I wouldn't really care about pictures of my house being on the internet because people have been getting robbed for years without Google Street View. If anything, I'd appreciate the fact that people can find my house easily when I have people over.
I think the problem is the immediate availability of these images if someone wanted to use them for crime. Sure...if a criminal wanted to case houses he would have to drive down the street. These pictures help him to do a better job of it. When you are driving down the street you only have a few seconds to glance at something. Here you have all day to study the images and make a plan for gaining entry and escape.I say downtown New York...fine...millions of photos have already been taken of that destination. That's a tourist spot. When it comes to private residence nobody is going to want to look down every single street in every single town. I think the should not be allowed to do this to residential streets. It just isn't needed.
Actually, that is what professionals do. They'll drive down the same street multiple times if any of the houses look like they are capable of being robbed. There was a show on Discovery (or one of those channels) where guys would show people how their homes were too susceptible for robbery. And most of their casing involved walking down the street and not driving.
You are not alone there
We better get Leon Kennedy or Chris Redfield on this.
I live on an out of the way cul-de-sac in an out of the way town. The only people who could see my house are my neighbors and the (rare) driver who makes a wrong turn. It so happens that my house is not visible from the street, due to a hill and some trees, but my neighbor's houses are in full view. Most of them bought a house on my street for the privacy it affords - privacy that was grossly violated when the Google car drove down my street and photographed all the houses it could. If we had burglaries on the neighborhood prior to the street view images being posted, you can bet that we would have been angry with Google. As it is, there are still a great deal of sore feelings towards Google in the neighborhood.
I totally sympathize with these people. Shame on you for laughing at them - whether you do so in private or not is your concern, but reporting it in a news story is highly unprofessional. Maybe they need to invest in a security system, but maybe they already have one and it didn't deter the burglars.
what a bunch of paranoid asses. If the guy interviewed says his neighborhood has been burgled 3 times already than its obvious it had nothing to do with google. Get a dog, neighborhood watch, some of your own camera's whatever it takes but don't take it out on a google car. Thats the true nature of ignorant mob mentality.
There's been lively debate around the easy availability of such detailed mapping information online, IMO neither position deserves to be discounted out of hand. There's no doubt that the bad guys ARE using this information... the Mumbai bombings were planned using the help of Google. Would they have found an alternative if it had not been available?... definitely... but that doesn't change the VALUE of being able to anonymously gather target intelligence.
I think SOME of the problem could be mitigated with navigation tracking... whenever someone zooms into a location at high resolution Google logs the coordinates and ip and stores it for a while. It might not help much for large urban areas but for suburban areas that would get relatively few hits I suspect it would be very useful.
Consider this. Burglars are usually locals looking for goods to steal, which can easily be sold for cash. They use these profits to fuel their drug habits and such. I'm sort of doubting there are to many burglars who spend all day on Google looking for an out of town home to burglarize.
Course if they did, Google could give them turn by turn directions to get there!!
If these folks were having burglaries recently, then they aught to take other steps to prevent them. Home security systems, dogs, being at home, locking doors and windows (be surprised how many burglaries are committed without "breaking" in).
If this mob really wants to reduce the crime rate, instead of hounding the Google mobile, they aught to go door to door interrogating people as to whom burglarized their home. They'd get further doing that, considering the existing burglaries likely had nothing to do with Google at all.
The villagers are "Paranoid"? That's insulting and condescending. What ever happened to the "right to privacy"? Nosy people have plenty of options for their voyeurism. Get off your lazy behinds and GO somehwere!
I dont know what the laws about privacy are in the UK, but here in America, unless your in a private neighborhood the streets are all PUBLIC places. And here in America, you are allowed to take pictures of absolutely ANYTHING YOU WANT IN PUBLIC. There are some exceptions to those rules though. If you have the uber telephoto lens and your taking pictures of a naked girl in her house that is illegal. She has the right to expect her privacy in her own home. But if shes is naked on the front porch, where one does not have that expectation of privacy, its perfectly legal to take that pic.
I find this funny because its Britain.... A country where the government has a camera on every street, every corner, and whatnot....
i laugh at the idea of these villagers shaking sticks towards the sky everytime a imaging satelitte passes over.
ROFL people lack common sense. Like all thieves watch google street for stuff to steal.
I welcome the pictures and hope that a criminal picks my house so I can show him my .45 I dont get to pull it out very often and this would give me a chance to finally test it out for its main purpose. GET A GUN.