What the, is that my ex going into my best friend's aparment?!

In Google's never-ending attempt to contain the knowledge of everything ever known and unknown to man into little metallic boxes redundantly hooked together on some shelf in their basement, they have brought us Google Street View! This feature, introduced in 2007, allows anyone to view a select amount of cities from the ground and see what it's like on the streets. You can swirl around your viewpoint using a mouse and see if that restaurant you were going to ahead of time so you don't accidentally miss it or find your friend's house if you can't remember what number his house is on a street. From the original set of cities that included San Francisco, New York, and Las Vegas, it has expanded to contain other locales such as Phoenix and Indianapolis.

This sounds all good and nice and all, but like all good things on the Internet, there's usually a drawback to it and Street View is no exception. Google was able to bring this feature by essentially driving around with a camera and taking pictures of everything, and i do mean everything.Together with the innocent shots of random pedestrians minding their own business, there are pictures of sunbathing girls, men walking out of a gentleman's bar, and one guy breaking in to a house.

The issue of privacy is obviously going to be raised in a situation like this. The important part is whether Google acknowledges it and they have. Initially, the process of getting your picture off Street View was difficult, but they eventually decided to make things easier for themselves and the consumer. Now, if you see a picture of yourself on it doing something that you wouldn't want your boss/wife/friends to see, or if you think that there's something on it that warrants removal, you could just click on "Street View" help on the top of the image and "Report inappropriate picture" at the bottom of it. It will give you a link to a page where you can explain why the picture should be removed and submit it to Google for review. I do not know how fast Google's response time on these requests are, but given Kevin Bankston's reply, it would probably take at least 5 days.

As for whether or not i feel that Google has done its part, i think that it is adequate. I hate to beat a dead horse, but i'm on the side that says that no one should need your consent to use your image when you are in public. After all, you share that space along with everyone else and that means that people will see you, it's just that now there is a possibility that millions may see you through the Internet instead of the usual hundreds that are on the street. They now also provide a way for you to remove a picture too, which should be enough to satisfy most.