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Can someone eplain to me how google earth can hang a camera on a car and peek over an 8 ft privacy fence to see into my yard and show a clear view of my house. I get the fact that if they are on public property they can take pictures of whatever they want but isnt this a clear invasion of my privacy since I have gone ahead and placed the privacy fence up. ( the fence by the way are thick hedges ) Arent they going out of their way to invade my privacy?

Looking for some well thought out opinions not you cant fight city hall or you cant do a thing about it, I already have heard these. Thanks

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Jason, Google is out of control. The governmental agencies are unlikely to be of any help to stop this because of the benefits they enjoy. The GA's would spy on you themselves, but it is far better to have a "private" corporation do the dirty work for them. Even if you could stop their ground-based "spy-cams" you still have to deal with the hi-res cameras they use in satellites. This is no conspiracy-theory, by the way.

Here's another Google story: Awhile back, my cell phone started dying, so I got an "android" type cell phone because a friend talked me into it. He's telling me how he can't live without it, blah, bla. So I bite on a 30-day trial. I transferred all my contacts from my old "dumb" phone to this new "smart" phone. Then my friend tells me I can really only enjoy the full benefits when I add a Gmail account to this phone. Next thing you know, without my permission, my entire PRIVATE contact list is on the PUBLIC Gmail server! Had I any idea that ANDROID=GOOGLE I would have left that thing in the store where I found it.. I let my "friend" know about it, too.

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Joe, I found this tonight...Asking Google to remove your home from Maps Street View

.A Minneapolis suburb has become the first area in the US to ask Google to remove them from Google Maps Street View, after they complained that Google had violated their privacy. Google immediately complied.

Not many people may know that if you want your property images removed from Google Maps Street View, you can file a request with Google to have it done and Google will comply. Here is how you do it.

Go to Google Maps, click on “street view” and find the offending image.   I have chosen a random image in New York for my example

At the top of the image, you will see “Street View Help”. Â Click on that. Â Â When the next box comes up, click on “report inappropriate image” at the bottom.

You’ll be asked to then explain the reason why you are complaining, the exact problem and you also have to zoom in exactly on the part of the picture that you find objectionable. Â Â Then submit your complaint.

I haven’t been able to find any details of how long it takes for Google to process your complaint so if anyone reading this has filed a complaint like this, perhaps they can tell us in the comments how long it took them?

I submitted my request for removal this evening citing that I believe my rights are being violated since the mapping service takes its images over an 8 ft hedgeline.

I agree I guess that if it can be seen by the road and any passerbyes than MAYBE its fair game but when they are peeking over fences I think they have gone too far.

I also cited that there have been homes burgularized in the area ( Im sure its happened :) ) and google earth allows these criminals to make detailed plans of home invasions from the privacy of their own homes.

I immidiately got a response from Google via e-mail that my complaint was being looked over and a decision will be made. Will let you know when I know

Might have to get Morgan and Morgan in on this one

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Then they will mount a taller tripod, I received this message this A.M.........................Hello,

Our records show that you recently reported an image within Google Maps Street View. We have taken your requested action and you should notice the changes to the Street View imagery within the next 24 hours.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate your patience while we worked to resolve this.

If you don’t see the changes after 24 hours, your browser's cache may be causing the issue. Please clear your browser's cache and re-check the image. For instructions on how to clear your browser’s cache, please see the link below.

They should better define taken my requested action, no shiz, I know this since they sent an initial e-mail notifying me they had received my e-mail. Havent checked yet, maybe its already gone.

Still there as of 5.39 A.M, will wait the 24

Edited by 1930 (see edit history)
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At the time they shot the photo that now appears the hedge was not nearly so high as it is now, the hedge that Phil shows still looks higher than what I have but mine is still growing. ( I think my particular bush will max out at about 12 feet )

Also at some point ( many months ago ) since those pictures were taken I now have planted no less than 60 additional plants on the adjacent side of the sidewalk because I had the for sight to consider that technically if the county wanted those bushes removed in the easement area ( the area closest to the road ) they could do so, at least I would have the other still though on the house side of the sidewalk so still there would be another fence.

I sent in another request to have the image blurred/removed, same generic response, I called google and had my time wasted for about twenty minutes with excuses as to why I could not speak to someone that could actually help.

I was directed to a legal dept. where I again filled out another form but was clearly informed that they may or may not get back with me.

I went back to the form also that I had re-submitted twice and filled out a third request and got this different response......Hello,

Thank you for informing us of your request regarding Street View imagery. We’re currently reviewing the imagery you reported so that we can take the appropriate action per your request.

We appreciate your patience and assistance as we work to resolve this situation.............

Different in that at least they don't even give a 24 Hr wait to see any changes notification.

I have read stories about law-suits lost on line with google earth but I have also read that all you have to do is ask and they will blur out your property upon request so maybe it is a thing that they will get around too when they feel like it.

I am going to give it some time and then make another decision. Maybe I will get what I requested maybe not.

I would urge anyone reading this to do the same as what I have done, whether you have a privacy fence or not you are still entitled to not have your property displayed all over the internet. It opens you up to all sorts of problems and by accepting this invasion of your privacy and giving them another inch it will only give them the green-light to take another inch.

In most county's ( around here ) workers cannot look over a privacy fence to see what you are doing on your own property, it is against regulations, those regulations were put in place because of privacy issues. Now the county doesn't have to worry about that with google earth on the job.

I have read that Google plans to at some point make the images live, I don't know how they plan to do that and whether or not that is true really does not matter, it is just an example of the possibilities that might see fruition at some point unless we all make a stand

Edited by 1930 (see edit history)
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Then you will have the world ( including shady Dodge Brothers ) be able to pinpoint where they can find parts for their own cars when you are not at home!

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Yes and if they happen to be a member and have the roster they can go to google and see where you store it, how many shrubs they can hide behind, where the proximity of your closest neighbors open window is and how many steps/seconds they have before either they get the part they want or they come under gun-fire

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Here in Newton County Indiana the building dept. uses google earth to scan the perimeter of your property when applying for a building permit. They look for encroachments or code violations. You can't hide that Dodge behind the shed anymore!

Bill

Exactly what I was getting at!

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Google Earth snapped me doing a valve adjustment on my DB on 9/10/10.

(Hiding under the gray tarp next to the Dodge is the 52 DeSoto I've been trying to sell.)

They caught me with my seven truckloads of stainless steel wheel covers next to my garage. You can see a glint of stainless over Phoenix, Oregon...

post-37352-14313878305_thumb.jpg

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There is no way Google Street View could go "live". There would need to be a camera in front of every house on the planet! :rolleyes: It MAY some day be possible to see the "capture car's " mapping view live, but who cares! By the time they go around the whole world again and catch your place, it would only be a three second instantaneous view of your fully grown bushes!

Google Earth is a fully different technology using mapping satellites. It takes a long time to process the data from them and align it to work with the Google Earth web data.

If you take your old Dodge out for a spin around town, you will probably be on camera at least 15 times before you get back home. If paranoia is your bag, then you better stay home, close your curtains and put camo netting over your whole yard. If not, those cameras will be the ones identifying the crooks that either steal your cars' parts or the cars themselves!

Isn't technology wonderful! ;)

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How did the car end up there, how did you find it and what does it say concerning the car?

My sister works at a clinic where there is a doctor who speaks Farsi (the modern version of Persian spoken in Iran). He said that the site seemed to have been generated by someone who likes to troll the Net in search of a variety of things that interest them, and then make visual lists of those things...just for fun. The photo of my car had only been posted to our Forum at that point, so I have to conclude that's where they downloaded it from. That they found my DL6 in the same category as that multi-million dollar Bugatti, I find verrrrrrry interesting!!

I came upon their site when I did one of my periodic Google Image searches for "1932 Dodge" to see if anything new had popped up...and saw my car.

It's a perfect example that, once you post something, it takes on a whole life of its own...totally out of your control.

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Quote............There is no way Google Street View could go "live..............We have a local shopping district here that supposedly turned into a place where alot of crime was happening, the city put up 24 hr video surveillance cameras.

We have had put at various locations cameras at street lights catching people supposedly breaking the law and then using that data to issue tickets.

I am not saying cameras in front of every house will happen in my lifetime but I am saying that nothing is impossible and almost certainly we already have the technology to do any of this.

How easy would it be for the county to team up with Verizon and use it already buried fiber optic cables as a means for transferring images.

If the different municipalities are using google earth and google street deal as tactics to gain revenue from CHOSEN offending citizens what will stop them from allowing the placement of cameras at any location they desire or every location they can possibly manage it or easier yet devise a way that the overhead satellites can magnify details on the ground level better so that Phil ( for example ) does not appear to be a pimple between two unknown objects.

In my opinion we are getting waay off the original topic, words like paranoia are being used and have no place here. ( an in my opinion seem a little offensive )

The direction this has turned makes the original post seem foolish.

The original post asked for someone to explain to me how it was OK for any persons to peek over an 8 ft privacy fence just to gain images of my house and my surrounding properties.

It asked for someone to explain to me how I am not entitled to my privacy so should I desire it and take steps to gain this!

Yes the googe earth can use a satellite to see behind the fence, I don't see what difference that makes at this point, the images are not in any way precise, no details can be had from them.

Google street view is so precise that it can can pick up the image of the garden hose that I left in my driveway because I was too fat and lazy to put it where it belonged and for me that causes embarrassment, I don't like the idea of anyone thinking that I am too fat and lazy too put away my garden hose. Silly to most of you ? Probably. But not silly to me.

I have some neighbors ( thankfully ) that wouldn't dream of leaving their garden hose out where it does not belong and I appreciate that prob. as much as they would appreciate me putting my own away.

We don't live in a deed restricted neighborhood but thank-fully some of

us have the decency to understand that our homes are our castles even though all of the homes and people dwelling within them are barely average if you were to use our income levels of scaling.

I also have a couple of neighbors that wouldn't think twice about having ten thousand hub-caps and god knows what else stored on their property and although it is their property and AT THIS POINT MAYBE NOT A CODE VIOLATION ( although doubtful ) I think that it is their right to have that as well if it is how they choose to live as long as I don't have too look at it I.E they keep it all behind a fence but even that is only a personal preference, technically in my opinion that same person should be allowed to have ten thousand hubcaps dangling from their home if they so choose because IT IS THEIR HOME and they paid for it.

Know this though that, prob. at some point someone is going tell the offender that he has to remove those ten thousand hub-caps because of some B.S reasoning, at that point maybe this topic wont appear quite as paranoid.

Anyway knowing that I can at times be too fat and lazy to put away my garden hose I decided to erect/ plant a privacy fence around the perimeter of my home.

I really enjoy working outdoors with my plants and have a hobby of trimming my plants to various shapes not so nearly as elegant as Edward Scissor hands so it seemed the obvious choice for me.

Since I erected/planted this fence and asked the world for privacy I feel that the world should grant me this. I don't feel that I am asking for too much.

So once again to quote .................Can someone explain to me how google earth can hang a camera on a car and peek over an 8 ft privacy fence to see into my yard and show a clear view of my house. I get the fact that if they are on public property they can take pictures of whatever they want but isn't this a clear invasion of my privacy since I have gone ahead and placed the privacy fence up. ( the fence by the way are thick hedges ) Aren't they going out of their way to invade my privacy? .......................

BTW I am at this point writing a scathing letter to google earth founder Michael T Jones outlining my concerns and am hopeful of the proper letter of apology acknowledging that my rights have been violated and the ut-most assurance that it will never happen again. :)

Edited by 1930 (see edit history)
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Paranoia is in the "eye of the beholder". To some a situation may describe a symptom, to others it may not. All depends on your background. Someone who was wronged in the past may see a situation in a paranoic manner where others, that did not experience similar issues, may not.

Google's "capture cars" have the cameras up high so as to get the equipment above other passing vehicles. When on busier streets, the process they are attempting would be pretty useless if all you saw were blurred passing cars. It is impractical to have to change the equipment constantly for the changing traffic conditions so I am sure they elect to leave it up in the most optimum position. With that said, they HAVE opted to lower the capture cameras in certain spots in Japan after essentially the same complaint from MANY people. But also I am sure that they only do this in the "complaint areas" and that it is raised back up to their calculated "optimum position" for everywhere else.

Google HAS stated in their contacts that they WILL blur or remove (whatever) the requested data from the stream. But I am also sure that the process to do that will take some time because of the extensive amount of data they have to go through. What may help them is for them to have LOW RESOLUTION photos sent to them matching the offending views AND GPS DATA from the location of the camera where those photos are taken. I would think this would help them narrow down their search of the massive amount of data they need to look through to find the specific views in question.

These are my well thought out opinions.

Edited by 1936 D2 (see edit history)
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It sounds as though you need to run for city coucil or a state position if you have trouble with these pictures. Being in politics you would have better control of what is done in your area. If you are worried about your privacy it also seems strange that you are always asking for serial numbers, pictures and locations of vehicles here on the forum. There are many stories of cars being stolen with this information from forums. Or even cars being listed for sale with pictures captured from forums expecting a sizeable downpayment. We all need to be carefull what information is given out.

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...If you are worried about your privacy it also seems strange that you are always asking for serial numbers, pictures and locations of vehicles here on the forum. There are many stories of cars being stolen with this information from forums. Or even cars being listed for sale with pictures captured from forums expecting a sizeable downpayment. We all need to be carefull what information is given out.

Good points! This info from "near" can cause much more trouble in the long run than the subject of this thread in my opinion! (Although I still do like to see photos of closeups of particular parts to augment questions or answers on the forum). :o

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Again my point seems to be eluded in that I dont believe the capture cars should be out their in the first place, ( I dont care about how high or low the cameras are, there is nothing to be captured in my neighbors yard that is my buisness or anyones buisness. I do understand though that apparently someone along the way has made it OK to take photographs of other peoples lives from public property. ( I disagree with this by the way ) Google earth says they take the pictures from street level as like any passerby could do if they choose.

This is in-accurate. They do not take the pictures from street level, they take the photos from many feet above ground. High eneough to circumvent a privacy fence that was placed for privacy, there is NO SUV that has ever been built that would allow the passengers sitting inside to see my property and no larger trucks can come anywhere near my home because of road restrictions.

Countrys here and abroad have places where tourists are invited to come and see the magnificent wonders, it is nice seeing these places on Google earth, Google earth is invited to these places I am sure in many cases. My home is not Disneyland, I have not invited anyone to come check out the garden hose left in my driveway.

They once again invade my privacy.

Bad points..................Quote...........If you are worried about your privacy it also seems strange that you are always asking for serial numbers, pictures and locations of vehicles here on the forum.............thats a bit of a joke since I dont think I have ever asked for any vehicle location and when serial numbers are brought up it is ( as you are already fully aware ) to help someone decipher more information about their car so thanks for the chuckle Doug.

I would also point out the most obvious flaw or missing point with where it would seem that you might be edging your post toward and that is that I ask, I dont take anyones information un-willingly and without permission. If someone wishes not to share information about their car than I would not be able to help them with some of their questions and that is the end of story.

So with all that said it would seem that no-one is able as of yet to answer the question in my original post which was ..............Can someone explain to me how google earth can hang a camera on a car and peek over an 8 ft privacy fence to see into my yard and show a clear view of my house............I guess I should have clarified further in that I understand the mechanicals of how they can do it, I understand why they do it ( where is that darn dollar sign emoticon when I need it ) I just wish someone to explain to me what gives them the right!

Edited by 1930 (see edit history)
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Can someone explain to me how google earth can hang a camera on a car and peek over an 8 ft privacy fence to see into my yard and show a clear view of my house......I just wish someone to explain to me what gives them the right!

Jason, I'm not taking sides here, but being a commercial photographer myself (as part of my graphic design business), I'm somewhat familiar with the laws protecting photographers.

Here's a link that does not cite any specific laws that apply, but will give you a basic overview: Photography, the Law and Photographers Rights - Bob Atkins Photography

Here's the portion that, hopefully, explains your question: "You do not need permission from someone to take their picture if they are in public view. However if they in an area where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, you are not allowed to invade that privacy by photographing them. So for example you can't use a telephoto lens to peer into someone's bedroom. Neither can you photograph someone in a private changing room or a public restroom even if, for some reason, you can see into it. There's a reasonable expectation of privacy in such areas and if you take a photograph and the subject files a complaint with the police, you may be arrested for charges related to invasion of privacy."

The contentious part of that, of course, is who gets to define "reasonable expectation of privacy." That might need to be decided by a judge in a case, but I'm guessing that, if taking pictures of someones yard (no matter the height or angle) were that borderline a situation, then Google would have been sued (and lost) long ago.

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Phil, thanks, I am not asking anyone to take sides, this is a discussion forum, the topic was started because I was interested in attaining information whether it be contrary to what I would like to hear.

I will say that this is the sort of response that gives me food for thought since it finally is rooted at the initial question.

I will also say that maybe you are right, it will come down to a judge making that decision, I will also say that obviously google is a billion dollar organization so would question if there has ever been a case filed against them with the identical complaint that I am making because of the lack of putting the money where the mouth is so to say.

I have searched and have not any case, it but would still find it hard to believe that I am all alone in this complaint. I would suggest that trying to find a person or lawyer to take on the case would be difficult at best due to financial restraints again.

I am hoping or was hoping with my original post that maybe someone who were more computer savvy than myself would be able to locate such a case being tried. We have some terribly intelligent people on this board and I can only assume that by the lack of silence in the matter that there simply has been no such case filed and made public.

I will also say that often times in life it makes no difference what a judge or any person in authority decides on a matter, we have to be our own judge at times and make our own decisions about what is right or wrong. I have decided that anyone that circumvents my privacy fence is wrong and I feel very strongly had I the financial attributes to take this to court myself I would win.

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I would guess (not being a lawyer) that what Google is doing is considered only the latest iteration of what photographers have been doing for a century and a half. Thus, I have to believe that the legal system would recognize legal precedences regarding privacy laws set back nearly that far.

But, one of the best things about this country is that, if you don't like the laws, you have WAYS to attempt to change them! (One doesn't always have the MEANS, though.)

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Just for all those keeping score at home the image has been blurred and is no longer available. In my opinion that alone is an admission of guilt or at least we are not too sure yet if we can get away with it yet so lets just play it safe a little while longer and give the guy what he wants.

Seriousely though I think the clincher was my heated letter to Michael ( or Mike as he has requested me to address him ) He found out just who he was dealing with and decided it better to just back off :D

Edited by 1930 (see edit history)
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Sounds like they did just what they said they would do in the first response.

You had a valid request, they said it would be reviewed, then they said they would handle it but it would just take some time and now they finished it.

Big deal out of nothing. Just follow the proper channels as already set up and the thing gets done. Conspiracy theory averted! :cool:

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Technically they said ...........you should notice the changes to the Street View imagery within the next 24 hours...............That was a week ago, I have a feeling they were gathering every minuscule detail they could pinpoint with their imagery and saving it for a future ambush when they finally partner with our local state and county government agencies and I pXXss off the wrong person downtown but that only a theory ;) I like to call conspiricy

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