
Several Hundred Thousand Germans Opt Out of Google Street View - aj
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/hundreds_of_thousands_of_germans_opt_out_of_google.php
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Kliment
(note: I live in Germany)

This never made sense to me. Prior to Street View, at least two German
companies did the same thing (photographing every street with essentially the
same technology,and putting it online). Noone complained. Now that Google is
doing it, it's suddenly a huge privacy nightmare. I just don't understand.

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bartman
Could you link to the companies doing that? I never heard of them, even though
I'm from Germany.

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smcl
Das Telefonbuch have a system where you can look up someone's name in a town,
and list their address and provide links to view satellite images of the
street:

<http://www.dastelefonbuch.de/>

If Germans were _really_ more conscious of privacy then I suspect they'd be
worried about this, but as previous posters have said it's more down to
misinformation and exaggeration.

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avar
Das Telefonbuch has _aerial_ images, that's very different from street-level
images on Google Street View.

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evgen
Correct. Ariel images show you things that are not visible to a driver or
pedestrian. Much bigger privacy risk if you actually thought about it for a
second...

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twoct
I'm always amazed to see this come up again. (I do live there) The
irrationality culminates when people are interviewed by local newspapers,
which then put them in front of the or home in a huge image right above the
article where they complain about the privacy issues they have with Google
photographing their home.

On a final note there is a short enjoyable parody od the situation from the
leader of the political party THE PARTEI, about Google "Home View"
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYMGkQTpODY>) language is German, though I
assume one can follow easily without knowing any German. I haven't found a
transcript nor English version. :(

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hellrich
"DIE PARTEI" is no real party but an act of comedy / form of satire (they
weren't allowed to participate in national elections).

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Tichy
"Nazis' Gestapo and the East German Stasi secret police"

Ooops - it seems many people might not realize that Street View images are not
live. There was also another statement in a newspaper here (Germany) where
some police officers were considering if they could do virtual patrols.
Misinformation leads to fear...

I think in the long run, the opposite thing will be much more important:
people will fight to be IN street view. If you are a shop owner, not being on
street view will be a significant disadvantage.

Not only will outdated pictures be a problem, but also the people living above
your shop who opted out of Street View.

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cschwarm
To put things into perspective: Google has a 97% market share for search here
in Germany, IIRC. Don't know the other numbers, but they are probably quite
high for online video, too.

Also, I'd say, people here don't have the blind faith, U.S. people seem to
have concerning cooperations and free markets.

Under these circumstances, it shouldn't be a surprise that Germans are
reluctant to watch some large cooperation build another potential monopoly out
of other people's "property" -- namely their privacy.

~~~
ugh
That again? How can photographs taken from public places be your property? How
do you have a right to stop anyone, including Google, from taking them?

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cschwarm
Well, there are some different questions:

First, do they have a right to use a camera mounted in a height above the
normal eye level? Why should people be required to adjust the height of their
fences to protect themselves from Google's view? Just because there are no
laws against this yet, doens't mean Google has a right.

Second, even if they have the right to make the photos, do they also have the
right to automatically make them public? There's no human judgement involved,
so who's responsible when Google camera catches you naked while sun-bathing in
your own garden? Who can be sued for taking these images down and who's paying
for the damage that is created while the photos were online?

Third, do the have the right to connect the photos with street addresss so the
views are searchable? This decreases search costs and your home will be public
not just to bypassers, but to anyone. Who said, they are allowded to do that?

And this is the point: They asked noone but just though they could act as if
they are free do however they please. This may work in the U.S. but this
doens't work here. Or, at least, that's not how it should work.

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ugh
1\. Three meters is not an unreasonable height, that’s about your eye height
in a bus. People already don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy from
cameras that height.

2\. They have the right to make them public. It’s right there in the law. And
if something goes wrong you can sue Google - they are responsible, they have a
German address and all.

3\. It’s not illegal. You don’t have to ask anybody.

Google can take photos in public and I don’t want anyone to take that right
away from Google because at the same time my right to do the same is also
taken away. Can’t you see that? You also seem to have a poor understanding of
the current legislation in Germany.

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electromagnetic
I'm sorry, I find it grossly naive that you believe a photograph taken from
beyond the legislated _privacy_ fence height in most jurisdictions to be not
unreasonable. Of course people don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy
from 3 meters tall, they have a reasonable expectation that people will
respect the spirit of the law and not be a raging moron and _place_ a camera
at that height.

I do know that in many jurisdictions, probably including Germany, that it is
completely 100% illegal to profit from your photography of another person
without their _written consent_. Given that Google photographed several of my
friends, didn't get them to sign a released and _is_ making a profit off of
its unconsented photography it _is_ violating the law.

So, just for clarification. Google is violating the law in many jurisdictions.
I'm unsure about Germany, but I know they are in the UK and Canada even though
no charges have been brought. Perhaps because Google isn't specifically trying
to make a profit off of the personal images they have taken, but under the
letter of the law they are completely violating it at the moment. This is
perhaps why they are working on software to remove people from their
photographs, because they already know they're breaking the law.

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ugh
It’s perfectly legal to profit from photos which happen to have people in them
without any consent, written or otherwise. And I damn well hope that it stays
that way.

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cschwarm
Nope: <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recht_am_eigenen_Bild>

~~~
ugh
Sigh. Doesn’t apply.

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jhuckestein
I'm currently in Germany. When I left the US everybody was talking about
Google's net neutrality issues. In Germany those things were barely even
mentioned.

I think this alleged "street view scandal" covered up the whole net neutrality
scandal (which IMHO is much more important).

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c1sc0
Premium-grade FUD, really interesting to observe (I live in Germany). What I
find interesting is that while no direct legislative action is being taken by
politicians on this front, they generate so much noise in the media that
people are opting out all by themselves. Sneaky because you can't even
actively arbitrage against this.

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yellowbkpk
This is a relevant blog post from Ed Parsons, one of the guys that Google pays
to think and talk about Geo-related stuff:

[http://www.edparsons.com/2010/09/germany-doomed-never-to-
inn...](http://www.edparsons.com/2010/09/germany-doomed-never-to-innovate/)

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senki
We need an analogue of 'robots.txt' for the real world.

