Google Map Street View – an invasion of privacy?

Google’s Street View, a new Google Maps feature that uses vehicle cameras to take 360 degree street-level views of major urban areas (so far only in the US), has set the Web buzzing with talk about its privacy implications. The photos are so detailed that one lady, whose cat Monty is clearly visible sitting in her living room window, contacted Google and asked for the image to be removed. “The next step might be seeing books on my shelf. If the government was doing this, people would be outraged,” said the perplexed Ms. Kalin-Casey from Oakland, CA.

Websites are making the most of the images captured too. The Wired blog has started a contest on the most interesting photos found using the new Google Tool that now includes sunbathing coeds, alleged drug deals, and the Google van itself. And the site LaudonTech.com showed an image of a man entering a pornographic bookstore in Oakland, but his face was not visible.

It does raise an interesting question: should Google be allowed to publish detailed intimate snap shots on the internet of people’s private lives? The images are taken in a public place so legally Google is doing nothing wrong – but is it right ethically? Well, we can’t answer that. But what we can do is marvel at Google’s technology.