Note to privacy advocates: Good luck

There are plenty of legitimate concerns about the privacy intrusions of Google Maps' Street View, but one privacy group went a bit overboard with an attack on the search giant's all-seeing eye.

"Google's hypocrisy is breathtaking," accused Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, in a statement last week. Perhaps, but he would have been better to pick stronger grounds for his conclusion.

The center provided two recent quotations from Google as evidence. First was "privacy does not exist," from Google's May 28 rebuttal to an April invasion-of-privacy suit related to Street View. Second was "Google takes privacy very seriously," from Google's response to a request that California's attorney general scrutinize privacy implications of Google's ad partnership with Yahoo.

The National Legal and Policy Center took a jab at Google by posting Street View directions to a top Google executive's house.

(Credit: National Legal and Policy Center)

Those two statements indeed appear contradictory. The trouble is that the center significantly distorted the first, which actually was the much milder assertion, "Today's satellite-image technology means that...complete privacy does not exist."

Boehm also took issue with a statement by Internet pioneer and Google evangelist Vint Cerf. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Cerf said in May, "nothing you do ever goes away and nothing you do ever escapes notice." Then, in what the newspaper described as an "intentionally flippant moment," Cerf added, "There isn't any privacy, get over it."

It sounded to me like Cerf was channeling the eminently quotable and frequently flippant Scott McNealy, who back when he was Sun Microsystems chief executive said, "You have no privacy. Get over it." In any event, Cerf explained himself to Google Blogoscoped: "It was intended to be partly in jest and partly irony...I was trying to suggest that we really have entered a period when things are a lot less private. Think of the ease with which photos and videos can be taken, digitized, shipped around on the Internet, posted on YouTube or its equivalent."

So perhaps Boehm was overreached in his choice of evidence. But I think he's correct in his judgment that privacy "is being chipped away bit by bit every day by companies like Google."

Google Street View is one example. Even though it's legal to take photographs from a public street, there's no question it's a notch harder to hide from prying eyes, in particular because Street View provides a mechanism to look exactly where you want to look, then virtually stroll down the street. Other sites, such as Flickr, provide plenty of photographs, often in much more private circumstances, but it's harder to use that to systematically explore an area.

But the larger issue is that Cerf is right. Leaving Street View aside, it's just easier to record, share, and archive information, and the same Internet-powered economy of scale that makes eBay work also amplifies the petty annoyances of neighborhood-scale prying and gossip to the global level. So while it's smart for privacy advocates to take on Google, the practical reality is they also have to take on chat rooms, photo-sharing sites, social networks, any charity that records donors' names, digital camera manufacturers, Internet access providers, banks with security cameras, and heaven knows what else.

Good luck with that.

Even if advocates manage to spur privacy regulation and shame companies into privacy-respecting behavior, technology means progress will be tough.

For the record, Google has a mechanism that lets people with privacy concerns request that images be removed from Street View. Clicking the "help" icon above a Street View image provides an option to report an "inappropriate" image. The reporting form includes an option for "privacy concerns," including "I have found a picture of my house and would like it removed."

Google also offers a form to request removal of your phone number from Google's phone book database, which lets searchers find out who a phone number is registered to.

[pingpong111]

We have no privacy as long as cowards and bullies are allowed to run free.

[Lerianis]

Correction: you have no right to privacy OUTSIDE OF YOUR HOME OR PERSONALLY OWNED BUSINESS.

Frankly, the 'privacy nuts' are going overboard here, and Google needs to STOMP ON THEM HARD. I am all for privacy when you have a reasonable expectation of privacy (such as in your home).
Anywhere else however.... you are fair game, and that INCLUDES when you step out of your home into the wide outdoors.

[gerrrg]

What expectation does one have of privacy, if they walk in an open place? What expectation of privacy does one have if one lives on a public street? Google makes for an easy target because it is a profitable, large company front and center, but this whole privacy outcry with Google is downright stupid.

IF by having rights to privacy means that you have unlimited privacy, then I have really bad news for paparazzi and anyone with a digital camera that does not get permission from the intended target(s), including buildings, vehicles and people. What about the people that attend sporting events, whose faces, actions and vulgarities are captured on video? Do they get to sue Universities and broadcasters for showing their face or their goofiness for all of us to see? Do they get to pass on consequential infamy, when all they wanted to do was to watch a sporting game?

I'm no apologist for Google, but a Right to privacy is neither absolute nor guaranteed. It comes down to four words: Reasonable Expectation of Privacy.

[umbrae]

I have been trying to get my house off Google Street View for 4 months. They are just a black hole and do not actually remove you. They are only collection email, which they probably print out to use as toilet paper. When I try to send additional requests to get removed, I get a form email that says I have already reported it and they are processing my request, and no information is given to contact someone about my request.

Screw Google...

[amerhome]

Google street view is an effective new tool for criminals to use for advance scouting activities. Crooks no longer to drive through residential neighborhoods in their own car to find potential targets. That saves time, gas and the risk of being noticed and ID'd by alert neighborhoods. Burglars can now use it find homes that are well screened from the street and their neighbors. Car thieves can identify homeowners' cars parked in their driveway that are in high demand for stripped parts or for smuggling to other countries.

Currently homeowners are not told in advance that their homes are going to be put on Google Street View. By the time they find out and ask for its removal, it may be too late. Because of the obvious security risk created by Google Street View, Google should use an opt in approach. The homes and other property of homeowners should not be posted on Google Street View without the express advance permission of residents.

American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance

Serving the interests of the nation's 75 million homeowners and future homeowners since 1984.

The American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance is a nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization dedicated to assisting the nation's 75 million homeowners understand significant policy issues affecting homeowners and homeownership, and empowering homeowners to make their voices heard by state and federal officials.

Visit our web site http://www.americanhomeowners.org.

[Nonnie_Mus]

"Privacy doesn't exist" - Someone (in this case, Google) has the *ability* to see what you're doing online.

"Google takes privacy very seriously" - Just because they can, doesn't mean they want to - or do so in an inappropriate way. Isn't Google the company that refused to hand over viewing YouTube records to Viacom?

IMHO, I see no hypocrisy here.

[amerhome]

Google street view is an effective new tool for criminals to use for advance daytime scouting activities. Crooks no longer have to drive through residential neighborhoods in their own car to find potential targets. That saves time, gas and the risk of being noticed and ID'd by alert neighborhoods. Burglars can now use it find homes that are well screened from the street and their neighbors. Car thieves can identify homeowners' cars parked in their driveway that are in high demand for stripped parts or for smuggling to other countries. Both can then go straight to their tagets in the middle of the night to commit their crime.

Currently homeowners are not told in advance that their homes are going to be put on Google Street View. By the time they find out and ask for its removal, it may be too late. Because of the obvious security risk created by Google Street View, Google should use an opt in approach. The homes and other property of homeowners should not be posted on Google Street View without the express advance permission of residents.

American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance

Serving the interests of the nation's 75 million homeowners and future homeowners since 1984.

The American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance is a nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization dedicated to assisting the nation's 75 million homeowners understand significant policy issues affecting homeowners and homeownership, and empowering homeowners to make their voices heard by state and federal officials.

Visit our web site http://www.americanhomeowners.org.

[benjaminstraight]

Privacy on the web will be the most debated issue of the first part of this millenium