Comments on: Google now zaps faces, license plates on Map Street View

After criticism from privacy advocates, company changes policy to allow anyone to ask for a face or license plate number to be removed.

[Mapper99]

Privacy Issues...

Take a look at some of the new privacy invasions capture by Google Street View since new cities came online last week:

http://streetviewgallery.corank.com

[qwerty75]

If Google followed their 'not evil' pledge

They wouldn't have to be publicly shamed before they started doing the right thing.

[dhavleak]

Dead Right! And what's more...

...even this policy stops waaay short of protecting people's privacy. How do I even know that there's an image that's infringing on my rights in some way unless I constantly search/do policing myself? Google should just not offer features of this nature -- or they should be blanking out all faces and number plates irrespective.. Whatever they do, they need to respect people's privacy better than they do right now. Don't be evil.. my ass..

[ACLUNC]

ACLU of N. California: Google should go further

Google has made it easier to request take-down of Street View images, but unfortunately, has not made the interface for initiating the removal process any more intuitive.

If Google is really serious about ensuring that people can protect their privacy and security by requesting take-down of images, they should add a direct link entitled ?Request Take Down? or ?Flag for Removal? to the top of each Google Street View image.

Google has reported that very few people have asked for an image to be removed. This is likely due in part to the fact that there is no direct link from a Street View image to request take-down of a photo for privacy or security concerns. Individuals must know to click on the ?Street View Help? link at the top of any image and then scroll down to the bottom of that box and click on ?Report Inappropriate Image.? This is just not intuitive. There should just be a direct link from each image.

See our blog at www.aclunc.org/techblog for more information about our privacy concerns with Street View.

[PicBuddy]

Who cares if it shows faces and license plates? Any time you go out in public your face and license plate are showing. Doesn't harm anything, just causes some paranoid technology lamers to get all freaked out when there's nothing to be scared of. People who see ghosts in the shadows. Hahah. Don't look under your bed! There's a boogieman there! Hahaha.

[RideTheWalrus]

Yes if you happen to see somebody driving down a street you can see their face and license plate - but you would have to be at that place at that time. With advancing technology like this you can search for somebody's license plate and find where they've been at any time. This is way worse than the former.

Ask yourself my google is doing this at all. The *only* possible application this could possibly have is to track where a license plate has been.

Quite frankly, that's none of your business.