Google maps: invasion of privacy

[FlashLackey]

I can understand the concern that people can look up your house and see how you live. But, there isn't a legal precedent to protect you there. It may depend on the state, but, everywhere I've lived, there is a publicly available record of what any given property has sold for. So, long before Google came along, you could find out what someones home was worth just with their address. Though, not as easily.

[Loyal Rogue]

FL, you make such convincing arguements sometimes that you had me completely agreeing with you about the satellite photos and expectations of privacy... especially because I am a huge Constitutionalist(?) when it come to our Bill of Rights.
(Btw, I really liked the examples of "secret" machines, patents and artwork. Nice touch.)

OK now, here's the real story on this whole issue and why it completely negates those feelings that I, FL, and CIN thought made sense about our privacy.

Going back to the middle ages, the common law of land ownership was "Cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad coelum et ad inferos", the literal translation of which means that whomever owns the land also owns above it to the heavens and below it to the depths.
All that changed with the invention of air travel.
It was determined that if a homeowner owned the airspace above his property than it would be impossible for an airline to secure all the permissions necessary for airpaths.
Therefore the laws were changed to make the airspace above what was needed by the homeowner's use (approx 500-1,000ft.) to become public property.
(There have been some interesting changes to the laws regarding how far below the ground you now own for minerals, oil and gas, but that is another subject entirely.)

So the long and the short of it are that if you are outside in an area that can be seen from the air (or neighboring highrise) you are allowing yourself to be viewed from public property and can not reasonably or legally expect any protection under the right to privacy anymore than if you were standing in your front lawn on the public street.

Bottomline: You want privacy, close the door.

(Oh yeah, while we're still under the Bush administration don't use the telephone or computer either...)

[whispers]

put a big SIGN of your signature on the roof.. problem solved.

[Visionray]

i still don't get why you're anti-google when apparently there are dozens of other companies which have the same photos available using the same satellites?

Seems to me your issue really isn't about privacy, it's about big business.

[ihoss.com]

Your argument seems to be that your new boss can look at your house on the internet INSTEAD of flying 3000 miles and driving up to your house. I don't think I would work for someone who would go to such lengths just to find out how you lived. And if your new boss lives 3000 miles away, wont you move soon anyways?

And you hadn't seen Google Earth/Maps before yesterday?

[FlashLackey]

FL, you make such convincing arguements sometimes that you had me completely agreeing with you about the satellite photos and expectations of privacy... especially because I am a huge Constitutionalist(?) when it come to our Bill of Rights.
(Btw, I really liked the examples of "secret" machines, patents and artwork. Nice touch.)

OK now, here's the real story on this whole issue and why it completely negates those feelings that I, FL, and CIN thought made sense about our privacy.

I appreciate the props.

I think you're right about the current law. I'm sure Google and others researched the legal ramifications and made sure they were within current law. My contention isn't that they are doing anything illegal as it stands. But, that the legal basis for other laws could (and arguably should and may) be applied in new laws surrounding this (relatively) new use of technology.

When the law was made to limit how high up a person owns above their property, the basis was that society would be better served by allowing air traffic. I think it's doubtful that they realized at that time that anyone would photograph the entire globe and make it available to anyone with a $300 computer. I don't think it serves society well to ask each citizen who wants to avoid photography to have to have a giant shed or box around their property. It would be much more efficient to put the burden on the few who want to benefit from this exclusive ability to photograph everyones property.

Remember too that technology is just going to get more accessible. It's not unrealistic, imo, that live video of any given location, on demand, could be much more available from satelites in our life-times. Are people really ok with the idea that any stranger could be watching what you are doing live in your private back yard? Another way to look at it is to ask what purpose that is valuable to society does anyone have to be able to see someones private property?

[Extricate]

now i dont know if this has been said before or not, but the U.S. government has already flat out told google not to go anywhere near the military bases or any nuclear power plants etc. for "national security" reasons. Which I completely agree with. But there are always positive and negative sides to the advancing technology. so people hate it, and the others make millions on it.

[Extricate]

Links : http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/...a/military.php

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/co...h_N.htm?csp=34



What you could do is surround your house in sandbags, put up a few M2's around the roof of your house and shoot at the buggers snapping pictures. and say you are part of a militia group( which you are allowed to form under the constitution). Take that GOOGLe!!!

[lordofduct]

ermmm, people do know that:

a) The space above and below your property is owned by the state. It was considered so when trans-continental flights began and has been so ever since. It actually occurred when large groups of farmers in the midwest rallied together and attempted to get royalties for allowing airplanes to fly over their property.

b) There is no law that disbars the photographing your publically viewable property. Criminal surveillance laws are very broad and obscure and mostly only protect the you against people spying on you and in the process try to hide the fact they are. For instance a peeping tom watching you undress. But then the law also protects (here in most parts of the US) by stating if you make such stuff publically viewable it isn't against the law. For instance if you leave your blinds open and have sex on the couch in front of your large picture window, well people taking photos of you are your own damn fault. As long as they didn't trespass on your property.

c) google doesn't actually take those photographs. They are compiled from air shots taken by the state and made available to the public. It's done as part of a census on a semi-regular basis depending your region. Good proof of it, my entire home town is on google maps, the picture of my house is from when we were building the barn in the back of the pasture in 1986. I don't think google was around then. (it was recently updated a few months ago though)

d) Oh noes, they have a map. Like this is new technology or something.

[silverx2]

you do know that all your points have been covered in this thread right?