Quite a validation of the accuracy of Google Street View is this U.S. Defense Department denial of Google access.

Google Inc. found itself at the center of a national security controversy Thursday.

The Pentagon banned the Internet giant’s digital-mapping vehicles from all military installations after detailed photographs of Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio appeared on Google Maps.

The Street View feature allows users to zoom in on 360-degree, ground-level views of neighborhoods, landmarks and other places that Google photographs from vehicles with roof-mounted cameras.

A message sent to all Defense Department bases and installations late last week warned officials not to allow Google vehicles access. Gary Ross, spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command, said sensitive imagery posted on the Web could pose a security threat.

“We don’t have any issues regarding Google and their products, which are very useful tools,” Ross said. “But the Street View provides clear imagery of control points, barriers, headquarters and security facilities that pose a risk to our force-protection efforts.”

Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., said it erred in collecting the information from the base and has since complied with the millitary’s request to take down the images.

A person familiar with the matter at Fort Sam Houston said a base official twice granted Google access, but only after he was assured that Google would not videotape or photograph the historic base, which serves as a medical-training and support post. The official had believed an online map would be useful to guide visitors.

“Unfortunately, Google didn’t follow the rules,” said the person, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the situation.

Google spokesman Larry Yu said the driver in question broke Google’s strict policy of not venturing onto military bases and private property.

“Against our policy, we did mistakenly access the base,” Yu said.

Yu said Google would continue to work with Defense officials to ensure that sensitive imagery does not appear on Google Maps.

Here is the controversial Street View image that has since been removed.


View Larger Map

Muncie, Indiana residents are speaking out, as TheStarPress.com notes.

A private person, Cathy Dowd does everything in her power to keep people from finding her information online.

Now, she wants to know how to get the detailed view of her Muncie home taken off Google’s “Street View” mapping function.

“How can I get eliminated from this list? I think if I’m allowed to be on a do-not-call list, I should be allowed to have my house’s picture removed from this site,” she said.

[...]

Ball State University telecommunications professor Dom Caristi said “Street View” is another example of the Internet being used as “an incremental encroachment on people’s privacy.”

“If you just look at this as just a map of your house, it’s not an issue,” Caristi said. “It’s what happens when people have access to this, your property tax information, your salary … all of it off the Internet at their fingertips.”

Gregg Sorg, Muncie, said he usually is a proponent of new technology. “But when I was able to virtually stand in front of my home and pan 360 degrees to see what my neighborhood looked like, it literally gave me chills,” Sorg said of his trial use of Google “Street View.”

The article continues.

In the aftermath of privacy concerns from individuals and groups, Google has made changes to the Google Reader.

When Google updated its Google Reader program earlier this month it expanded the program’s features allowing users to share items with Google Chat “friends.” Soon after the update Google was blasted by Google Reader users who felt Google shared too much with others.

Google has since modified its sharing feature to appease critics.

This Google SNAFU isn’t on par with the Facebook data sharing fiasco, but there are some similar lessons to learned.

Google Reader is a Web-based RSS reader that allows people keep tabs on blogs and news feeds that they subscribe to. With Google Reader you can view subscriptions in one central location. For some time now Google has allowed you to share news feeds and blog posts you were viewing with friends. To do this you would select a “share” option on the Google Reader item in question.

The article continues. Read a variety of reactions on ComputerWorld’s IT Blog Watch.

Google has a privacy channel on YouTube and has added new videos recently. As Elinor Mills notes:

The videos aren’t professionally produced; they are made by Google engineers, product managers, and Google public relations representatives using a handheld video camera, according to Victoria Grand, a manager of public affairs.

Googlers were wondering “how do we communicate with users about privacy and what is the best medium?” she says. “YouTube is a scalable platform that will let us get our messages out there.”

The videos do a good job of explaining technical subjects, with the on-camera Googlers speaking plainly and using whiteboards for illustrating concepts. Rather than using actors or slick-looking “suits,” the talent is Googlers casually sitting in their offices, on beanbags, in hallways, and otherwise looking as if it’s just another day at the office.

Some of the new videos posted this week show how to control privacy settings in specific Google products, including Blogger, Calendar, Docs, and Picasa, as well as how to chat “off the record” using Google Talk and how to make it so your phone number doesn’t show up Google’s search engine.

It’s hard to judge how successful the videos are, or will be. Grand says the first privacy video had about 50,000 page views in the first three weeks–no competition for the hand-holding otters–but still not bad.

Here are two of the new videos.

Google Privacy Tips: Chat “Off the Record”



Google Privacy Tips: Unlisting Phone Numbers

Google Street View has arrived in eight more U.S. cities.

Can’t get enough of virtually cruising your favorite cities in America via Google Street Views? If not, there is good news. Google has added eight new cities to its growing list of U.S. locations that allow you to browse and explore 360-degree panoramic views of highways, streets, and cul-de-sacs.
With this week’s additional cities Google now offers Street Views of 23 cities. Cities added this week include Boston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Detroit, and Providence. Google’s last Street View addition came in October.

The Boston Globe reports on the reactions in Boston.

“We take privacy concerns seriously,” said Stephen Chau, product manager for Google Maps. “All these images are taken on public streets. It’s exactly what you could see walking down the street.”

But while Google has developed technology that can obscure faces and license plate numbers in Street View images, the Mountain View, Calif., company has said it will blur faces and plate numbers only in countries where it is required to do so, not in the United States.

Street View’s rollout in Boston is part of a larger debut of the feature today in eight more cities, including Providence, Dallas, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Detroit, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. Google officials yesterday said they could not specify which Boston or suburban streets would be visible. The service covers only certain streets and neighborhoods in the cites where it’s now available, although in some locations, such as San Francisco, the majority of streets have been photographed. Google plans eventually to extend Street View to cities and towns of all sizes worldwide.

View Larger Map

[...]

“As Google gets closer and closer to its stated goal of indexing all the world’s information, more and more issues arise,” said John G. Palfrey Jr., executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. “In the privacy realm, Google is asking people for a lot of trust. The ball is really in Google’s court to prove they’re not going to violate people’s privacy.”

Google, in refusing to blur faces in US cities, has faced a chorus of critics in cities already catalogued in Street View, such as San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, who have called on the company to install technology that will make people pictured more anonymous. One of Street View’s critics, Kevin Bankston, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public interest group focusing on technology issues, was photographed on Street View smoking on his way to work in San Francisco.

“That was of concern to me because not all of my family knew I smoked,” Bankston said. Google ultimately removed the image at his request, but Bankston said the incident demonstrated the potential for worse abuse if other people were photographed going to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, health clinics for sensitive procedures, or other places that could compromise their privacy. He said he felt the Google feature was part of an ominous trend that included people taking pictures of others with camera phones and posting them on the Internet.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata reports on the reaction in theTwin Cities.

A few users are obsessed with finding what was playing at local movie theaters when the images were taken. The Stone Arch Cinema lists “Live Free or Die Hard,” “Knocked Up,” “Transformers” and the last “Harry Potter” flick on its marquee.

“It’s just plain fun to photographically cruise around town,” filmmaker Chuck Olsen said. “It’s like something out of a cyberpunk novel, without the danger and drugs.”

The images of the Twin Cities are “fascinating, an entire city frozen in – if not a moment – a fairly brief period,” Morrow said. “These photos – with their sunshine and green lawns – are making us all miss summer time.”

McPherson said “it’s even interesting to see a house near mine that had a tree fall on it during a storm in late August returned to its former glory.”

Street View triggered a heated discussion at MNspeak.com., with some commenters raising the privacy concerns echoed by others around the country. One person worried about Street View users looking to see where children live.

“What’s next?” another person wrote. “Googling and looking into homes and apartments. Hey! There’s my family! Eating dinner! The Internet is creepy.”

The announcement is on the way, according to The Wall Street Journal:

Google Inc. is close to unveiling its long-planned strategy to shake up the wireless market, people familiar with the matter say. The Web giant’s ambitious goal: to make applications and services as accessible on cellphones as they are on the Internet.

In a move likely to kick off an intense debate about the future shape of the cellphone industry, Google wants to make it easier for cellphone customers to get a variety of extra services on their phones — from maps to social-networking features to video-sharing. To get its way, however, the search giant will have to overcome resistance from wireless carriers and deal with potentially thorny security and privacy issues.

The article continues, and discusses anticipated features of the phone. But we are still awaiting the “official announcement.”

The New York Times reports on Google’s recent acquisition of Jaiku and the privacy concerns it raises:

Google’s acquisition of Jaiku, a small Finnish start-up active in the obscure field of microblogging — a word most often associated with the better-known company Twitter — might not appear to be an earth-shaking event.

But the deal, announced this month, has much of the tech-tracking blogosphere abuzz. Some claim it is the harbinger of a new, truly interconnected world, where a chunk of our existence will migrate online.

To begin with, the reasoning goes, Jaiku is not really about microblogging — those minimessages submitted by text or e-mail that made Twitter famous. Jaiku is “a mobile company in the business of creating smarter presence applications,” and therefore “a leader in a category most people haven’t fully grasped yet,” Tim O’Reilly, a technology conference promoter credited with the phrase Web 2.0, wrote in his blog.

Read the rest of the article which summarizes some of recent discussion on the hypothetical Web 2.0 address book.

Which begs the question, do we really need to expose the prosaic details of our daily lives to public, Internet view? As Ben Kelly points out, we may be reaching a point where the expectation of privacy is nonexistent.

Other websites like Twitter and Jaiku – which Google bought this week – allow you to post the minutia of your day through your PC, even through your cellphone. Twitter asks on simple question: “What are you doing now?” Watch any persons postings for long enough and you’ll build up a good idea of their daily routines, likes and dislikes.

Exposing their lives

But why is this interesting? Because there are elements of society that are willing to expose their entire lives to the world at large. They open up their relationships, their personal lives, their work lives for at least a portion of the world to see.

[...]
What is concerning is that there may come a time when it is hard to keep your personal information private. Not because you chose not to share it but because the culture of sharing has become so rampant that your friends keep mentioning you.

If that happens we might as well kiss the notion of privacy away and resign ourselves to the fact that anything we say or do will end up in the public domain.

Google recently posted a video on YouTube, celebrating the six new cities added to Google Street View. They provide the free mp3 enable you to make your own Street View video in response. Visit the YouTube Web page to download.

Is Google Street View coming to your town? Here’s what to look for.

Immersive Media provides the photo capture cars for Google. Find out more about them here and here and here.

As Privacy Maven has mentioned previously, Google does enable you to request that your image be removed from Street View. Here is the procedure.

Google’s social networking Web site, Orkut, is not as well known in the U.S. as Facebook or MySpace, but receives 25 million visitors internationally, more than half of whom are in Brazil, where the Web site is running into controversy over privacy issues. As The Wall Street Journal reports:

A central challenge for all these companies is how to turn the usage into cash. All of the big players are looking to advertisers to generate revenue. For most of its history Orkut was ad-free.

Then, when Google tried putting ads on the site, it ran into trouble. Critics in Brazil released a report showing advertisements on Orkut alongside pictures of naked children and abused animals. Google immediately suspended the ads, but the Mountain View, Calif., company is still grappling with the fallout from critics’ Orkut campaign.

The head of Google’s Brazilian operation is facing criminal contempt charges for refusing to turn Orkut users’ data over to police. And next month there is a hearing in a case brought by a São Paulo prosecutor threatening daily fines of $100,000 or the shuttering of Google’s Brazil office. “We have won,” says Thiago Tavares Nunes de Oliveira, a 28-year-old Brazilian law professor who wrote the graphic report and has crisscrossed Brazil making the case that Google allowed Orkut to become a redoubt of criminal activity, including child pornography and racist speech.

The U.S.-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which tracks reports of child pornography, says Orkut generates a comparable amount of pedophilia complaints as other social networks. Google says it regularly removes illegal content from its services. It adds that while Orkut’s data are not directly subject to Brazilian law, the company has changed its policies to more swiftly address Brazilian police and judicial requests.

Google announced recently on the Google Lat Long Blog that Google Earth has a new feature, allowing users to watch YouTube videos that have been geotagged:

Now you can find YouTube videos connected to specific locations right in Google Earth. Our new browseable layer of geotagged videos works a lot like our Google Book Search layer, only it shows you the locations referenced in specific videos instead of books. Let’s say you’re jetting off to Paris. Before you go, you can watch the sunset filmed from the top floor of the Eiffel Tower, among other clips of popular spots in the City of Lights.