News - Street View opt-outs get houses egged

[HEXUS]

More trouble for Google in Germany.

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[Percy1983]

Why get your house blurred, people still know its there!

[miniyazz]

Why do people care if it's blurred or not? Mindless ****s. Hope they get what's coming to them.

Edit for clarity: I mean the eggers.

[usxhe190]

Haha these people are so stupid. Houses???

[Hicks12]

while i agree its totally stupid to opt out of this, i do believe its pathetic that they are getting their property vandalized because they decided to opt out. Im sorry but thats just silly, everyone has their own right to their decisions but you shouldnt be abused just for a silly thing like this!.

[Kjnowak]

Actually, considering the amount of details you can get from Streetview I can completely understand why they would want the details blurred e.g on mine you can see the kids garden toys, so anyone can see that that particular house has small children of both sexes (thanks to bright pink and blue clashing toys) and as a parent it can scare the cr** out of you... So yes I can understand why they want to opt out out.

**Just to clarify it's the back garden which has a tall gate, so not viewable by anyone walking out the front of the house.

[this_is_gav]

Why do people care if it's blurred or not? Mindless ****s. Hope they get what's coming to them.

Oh come on... they opt out and get targeted?

OK, so opting out is pretty pointless, and getting egged isn't exactly arson, but getting egged because you've opted out of allowing the entire world to see your house within seconds is about as immature as you'll get and really isn't on.

Edit for your edit: Apologies I misread.

[judge56988]

Why do people care if it's blurred or not? Mindless ****s. Hope they get what's coming to them.

You may not care - 250,000 Germans do care enough to opt out and so would I. Anyone who doesn't think like you is a mindless **** are they? I hope you get what's coming to you.

[stavroshamster]

Oh come on... they opt out and get targeted?

OK, so opting out is pretty pointless, and getting egged isn't exactly arson, but getting egged because you've opted out of allowing the entire world to see your house within seconds is about as immature as you'll get and really isn't on.

You may not care - 250,000 Germans do care enough to opt out and so would I. Anyone who doesn't think like you is a mindless **** are they? I hope you get what's coming to you.

To give miniyazz the benefit of the doubt - I think his comment could (should?) be interpreted as him calling the "eggers" and not the "eggees" mindless. I think he's saying why do the people doing the egging care whether someone chooses to blue their house.

[Mblaster]

Oh come on... they opt out and get targeted?

OK, so opting out is pretty pointless, and getting egged isn't exactly arson, but getting egged because you've opted out of allowing the entire world to see your house within seconds is about as immature as you'll get and really isn't on.

You may not care - 250,000 Germans do care enough to opt out and so would I. Anyone who doesn't think like you is a mindless **** are they? I hope you get what's coming to you.

Calm down dear, I think his comments were directed at the people throwing the eggs...

I think some people don't realise that no-one cares about your house, to you it's very important, but to everyone else it's just another house like the millions of others in the country.

[judge56988]

OK - maybe I got it wrong. Sorry.
I happen to think it's wrong that Google do this. Burglars probably think it's fantastic.

[Funkstar]

I would really like to see some actual evidence that shows criminals are benefiting from Street View. I'm really not sure what use it would be, the data is years old in a lot of cases.

Are there similar campaigns against Bing or any of the other mapping services that are doing similar-but-not-quite-the-same as Google?

[judge56988]

I would really like to see some actual evidence that shows criminals are benefiting from Street View. I'm really not sure what use it would be, the data is years old in a lot of cases.

Are there similar campaigns against Bing or any of the other mapping services that are doing similar-but-not-quite-the-same as Google?

Whether or not it is of help to burglars, it seems clear that a lot of people, in Germany at least, thought that street view was an invasion of their privacy and chose to opt out; it's good that the German government have given them that option. I would be interested to see how many people in this country would also choose to opt out.
On the other hand as so many people seem to be more than happy to display or describe their whole lives to the world on Facebook or in blogs, they would no doubt think that having a picture of their house on the internet was pretty trivial.

[miniyazz]

OK - maybe I got it wrong. Sorry.
I happen to think it's wrong that Google do this. Burglars probably think it's fantastic.

No probs, edited for clarity.

[aceuk]

Won't blurring out houses make them more attractive to burglar's?

[Funkstar]

Whether or not it is of help to burglars, it seems clear that a lot of people, in Germany at least, thought that street view was an invasion of their privacy and chose to opt out; it's good that the German government have given them that option. I would be interested to see how many people in this country would also choose to opt out.

I don't have a problem with people wanting their property removed from Street View (or any other online mapping service that is now using photos). But this thing about making it more attractive to criminals just seems like tabloid scare mongering. Unless there is any evidence of the claims.