WARNING: Google is in Your Driveway

By Darren Weeks

A homeowner in Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit against Google for invasion of privacy and trespassing. The search engine actually sent a car with a camera mounted on the roof to their property, drove up their driveway, and took pictures of their house and yard.

Faced with a lawsuit by a Pittsburgh couple who claims that their privacy was invaded by Google's "Street View" mapping technology, the search giant has removed images of the family's home from its servers. Several photos of the Oakridge Lane home of Aaron and Christine Boring have been yanked from Google Maps and replaced with a black image, as seen below. But while photos of the Boring property have been scrubbed, a more intrusive series of photos of a neighboring home remain on Google. The home of Janet and George McKee is the only property on Goldenbrook Lane, a narrow, gravel path off Oakleaf Lane, a two-way street.
The McKee residence is at the end of Goldenbrook Lane, which the family was able to name at the time their home was built in 1993. As the "Street View" images show, a Google vehicle--outfitted with a roof-mounted camera taking 360-degree images--drove down the gravel path and onto the paved driveway leading to the McKee home. The Google car continued past the steps leading to the McKees's front door and came to a stop outside the house's three-car garage (and next to the family's trampoline and portable basketball rim). Taking photos all the time, the Google vehicle was squarely on private property, a fact that presumably should have been apparent when the gravel path became paved. Janet McKee, who was unaware of the "Street View" images until contacted by TSG, said that it was "a little bit creepy to think of someone filming our home without me knowing about it."

I've been leery of Google's privacy-invading tactics for a long time. One of the founders of the search giant stated a while back that "we're transitioning to a Google that knows more about you." I don't think anyone ever envisioned just how far-reaching that statement would turn out to be.

The question needs to be asked: Is Google partnering with intelligentsia to spy on ordinary Americans? After all, the CIA spooks have recently declared that the new terrorists are white westerners.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." —Benjamin Franklin

Eye on You: Google Streetview Camera Car Fleet Set to Invade America

Gizmodo
July 17, 2007

A camera-toting tipster saw what appeared to be a giant armada of Chevy Cobalt cars in the Google parking lot, getting ready to take pictures of the entire world (or thereabouts) with special 360° cameras. The tipster says he followed a Google camera van as it cruised back to its Mountain View, California, lair yesterday after that van finished a session of picture taking for Google's Streetview navigation site. Exactly what did he see?



It was an entire fleet of at least 30 brand-new Chevy Cobalt cars parked behind the building, most without license plates yet. As you can see in the pictures above, each had a metal device attached to its top, which looks suspiciously like a vertical extension for mounting Google's Streetview 360° camera.

Our telltale tipster tells us he thinks Google is "preparing their invasion of US cities with an armada of C.C.C.Cs (Chevy Cobalt Camera Cars). I guess Cobalts are cheap but they certainly will be conspicuous. Maybe that's what they want."

It looks like an auspicious addition to the camera car fleet, but it's going to take more than thirty Chevy Cobalts to take a portrait of the entire Earth, or even of the Silicon Valley. However, with Google's zillions, just about anything's possible. It's got its eye on you; the end is near.