I was unaware of this blog before now, but I'm glad to find it and to hear you present the steps you're taking to ease fears in various countries.
Google is getting too much bad press over Street View and much of it is hype based on ignorance. People need to understand that Street View is a new level of *mapping* and how it will work to make their lives easier, and that Google, as a company, is an innovator - not Big Brother or a company of spies.
So, yes, good for you for presenting in a respectful manner what's really happening in your negotiations with data protection agencies.
The stir Google streetview causes in EU is ridiculous - i have seen it making newspaper headlines here in Germany when they were mapping our city.
We (Germans) seems to be obsessed with privacy issues - but at the same time have the WORST history of all countries when it comes to protecting it.
Example: Former Eastern/Communist Germany where there literally was no such thing as a privacy...and of course what was going on in earlier history under the Nazi regime.
Now Google comes and maps our cities and people are freaking out.
Furthermore, i think it is astonishing that we have politicians so concerned about our privacy...while at the same time every webmaster is required by law to have an imprint on their site containing full name, address and phone number.
I don't think that mapping of our cities has ANY real negative impact on privacy at all, but that's just my opinion. Lighten up, Europeans!
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I was unaware of this blog before now, but I'm glad to find it and to hear you present the steps you're taking to ease fears in various countries.
ReplyDeleteGoogle is getting too much bad press over Street View and much of it is hype based on ignorance. People need to understand that Street View is a new level of *mapping* and how it will work to make their lives easier, and that Google, as a company, is an innovator - not Big Brother or a company of spies.
So, yes, good for you for presenting in a respectful manner what's really happening in your negotiations with data protection agencies.
The stir Google streetview causes in EU is ridiculous - i have seen it making newspaper headlines here in Germany when they were mapping our city.
ReplyDeleteWe (Germans) seems to be obsessed with privacy issues - but at the same time have the WORST history of all countries when it comes to protecting it.
Example: Former Eastern/Communist Germany where there literally was no such thing as a privacy...and of course what was going on in earlier history under the Nazi regime.
Now Google comes and maps our cities and people are freaking out.
Furthermore, i think it is astonishing that we have politicians so concerned about our privacy...while at the same time every webmaster is required by law to have an imprint on their site containing full name, address and phone number.
I don't think that mapping of our cities has ANY real negative impact on privacy at all, but that's just my opinion. Lighten up, Europeans!