Generally they seem to go beyond the strictly necessary too – they blur people’s faces and license plates and will remove images upon request.

Tom Brake is sounding a bit reactionary – perhaps its the big business aspect (which does lead to some concerns with Google), or perhaps its just a bit of good old fear of new technology.

He says, “putting such images into the public domain”, as if the images weren’t taken in public spaces anyway! He says, “Google must show even greater respect for privacy that on the street”, but we don’t have privacy on the street! It’s a public area!

Thumbs down from me too here.

One could just as easily headline the blogpost above as ‘Lib Dem MP tries to block access to information which is already in the public domain’.

I presume Tom doesn’t want a new law to prevent me taking a photo of some trees on a public footpath & then uploading the piccie to flickr? But that is essentially what Google is doing – admittedly on a massive scale.

Sounds to me like this new iteration of Street View, including taking photos of sites such as Stonehenge will likely:
- Increase tourism to the countryside at a time when the rural economy desperately needs it.
- Provide an inspiration for people to rediscover our public footpaths & other walkways thus increasing exercise in a nation suffering an obesity crisis.

A party that has a long & distinguished history of supporting greater access for ramblers to the countryside should follow the logic of that support.

(Just for the sake of clarity I hold no brief for google and myself have significant concerns about, for example, its seemingly cavalier attitude to authors’ Intellectual Property).

http://streetviewgallery.corank.com/