Listening to the news headlines on Friday morning I caught an item about villagers in somewhere called Broughton (apparently near Milton Keynes, which I would not have known without help from radio and press) surrounding a Google Street View car trying to photograph their sleepy hamlet. Tempers got warmed to the point that the police had to intervene. Surely G20 would have been a better focus for protest than GSV, but Street View and privacy does seem to have the potential to press people’s hot buttons.
I wondered whether it wouldn’t be less stressful for the residents of Broughton to just ask Google to remove any images that they didn’t want made public. After all, Ed Parsons commented a couple of weeks ago that Google would remove offending images within a couple of hours.
So I clicked on the just visible link in the bottom left hand corner of the Street View image of my home and requested it’s removal. An acknowledgement of my request came back by mail immediately. I haven’t received a further communication from Google but this morning the image of my house had been removed from Street View. Well done Google.
So a message to the good folk of Broughton, or anywhere else, who do not want their homes to appear on Street View. Rather than protest, write to newspapers or in other ways draw the attention of the national media to that which you wish to keep private, perhaps you would be better off just clicking on the link and asking Google to remove your images – less hassle and less publicity.
Now if I could only find the link to restore the image of my house! I guess I may have to live without a Street View image until they decide to drive round and rephotograph.
16 days to budget and still counting …. Rumours anyone?
Posted with LifeCast
