Friday, August 24, 2007
Google Maps Does About Face
Google's trying to not be evil with Maps' Street View images.Google's Marissa Mayer
told the audience at the Search Engine Strategies conference that the company will remove images from its Street View upon request if they contain faces or license plates.
In many folks' minds, Google crossed the line in privacy in keeping the faces in the pictures. This begs the bigger question about Google's ability to organize information into a public forum. Yes, people didn't opt in for their pictures to be put into Google Maps, but they aren't identified by name either.
We live increasing public lives (as is evidenced by the Spock search engine, which will "face" similar issues as it grows in function and popularity since it searches both images and textual information.
Social networking and public databases are both empowering and endangering (as Rudy Giluliani's daughter knows) for connecting people. Between Flickr, MySpace, and LinkedIn, Santa will find it much easier to know who has been naughty or nice, and what they look like.
Posted By John Gartner at 10:16 AM
Permanent Link: Google Maps Does About Face
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