There has been plenty of debate elsewhere already about the privacy implications of Google’s Street View service (and this fun Matt cartoon), so I won’t add to that here but instead I thought some people may find it useful to know how you can ask to get something removed from the service (e.g. any embarrassed Liberal Democrat activist who has been caught on camera walking past a letterbox and not putting a leaflet through it):
1. Go to http://maps.google.co.uk/.
2. Locate the offending scene, e.g. by searching for the postcode, dragging the yellow person on to the map and then moving around to get it on screen.
3. Click on “Report a problem” in small print in the bottom left corner of the photo.
4.Fill in the form.
(Or, for the geekily-inclined, put up this sign.)
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8 Comments
I reported my home on Monday…. It is still there 🙁
As Barry Collins has posted on the PC Pro blog, it is actually very easy to get them to remove things, even if your complaint is spurious.
This raises all sorts of questions about the possibility of a business rival lobbying to get a picture of a competitor’s shop removed for bogus reasons.
I don’t think the implications of this have been properly thought through.
But Mark Reckons my home is still there 🙁
When I click the ‘report a problem’ link, it just opens up another window of Google maps, NOT a complaint form. I have been trying to get my house off the website from day 1, and I haven’t even got to the form yet!
@Marie, I’ve just clicked on “Report a problem” a new window has appear with “Report Inappropriate Street View” here I have the option to select “Privacy Concerns” and “This is in reference to an image of: My house”.
There are some text boxes to fill in with some details and a red box to move around the “offending” item and a submit button.
I got a phone call last night to say my house was on google street view. I went onto google search engine to find out how to remove it and your website was one of the first on the list so I clicked on it and followed your advice. Hopefully it will work but I have heard that google can be very very slow in removing the photos. I was surprised to have read a reply from google this morning to say that the picture will be removed within 24 hours. If it is not, I will keep at them until my house is removed. They are a disgrace! They should not be allowed to photograph any private property, if they had only ever photographed places of interest (tourist y places etc) it could have been a nice service but not now with what they are doing. They should be ashamed and are the Worst company ever.
Oh something I forgot to add. It takes a lot of tries to get the google form sent off. I had to send it off 5 times before it would go through and in the end I used a different email address. They have the report an inappropriate image button hidden at the bottom of the screen to make sure people do not see it. I think they have their form programmed to be only accepted sometimes to make people think it is sent when it is not sent until you get another screen which has a message of acceptance on it. Burglars must love the street view.It should be banned.
If a viewer can see into your homes or into a usually-private part of your property then I hope Google remove the images swiftly, but if you’re objecting to images that represent a normal view of your property from the street then I hope they tell you to get stuffed.