I would say that aggregating publicly available data and making it searchable can be intrusive, even in seemingly harmless cases like Google Street View.
A couple of remarks on your second paragraph. I often read the view (Slashdot) that if you are in public, or publicly visible, you have no expectation of privacy. This is false in many legislations.
I cannot comment on U.S. law, but in Germany (and I presume in many other European countries), you need a person's consent before publishing their picture.
Exceptions:
a) You are in a public place and you are clearly not the center of the picture.
b) You participated in a public event (where it is likely that pictures are taken).
c) You are a public figure.
Note that even in the case of a public figure you would not be allowed to publish pictures of them engaging in sex.
I would be interested in how other countries handle this.
A couple of remarks on your second paragraph. I often read the view (Slashdot) that if you are in public, or publicly visible, you have no expectation of privacy. This is false in many legislations.
I cannot comment on U.S. law, but in Germany (and I presume in many other European countries), you need a person's consent before publishing their picture.
Exceptions:
a) You are in a public place and you are clearly not the center of the picture.
b) You participated in a public event (where it is likely that pictures are taken).
c) You are a public figure.
Note that even in the case of a public figure you would not be allowed to publish pictures of them engaging in sex.
I would be interested in how other countries handle this.